Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[BullsFan22]

It was a part of the Soviet Bloc between 1945 and 1948.

No it wasn’t.

 

[Ripper]

Strange performance by Pogacar. As and MVDP fanboy, it was good to see him get dropped proper today. Otherwise I'd have to start doubting him too.

Well, you should doubt vdP as well, as some of his performances have been quite ridiculous. Having said that, I that at least today he didn't take the absolute pi$$ and is not TP radioactive.

 

[Ripper]

On Danish TV2's website, Riis is quoted "I don't know what to say, cause it didn't look normal..."

Excellent comedy gold

 

[Ripper]

The chase group took 27'' on Pogi on the descent. I doubt a lone rider could go faster.

TP took it easier on the descent, no point in risking a crash in the wet

 

[Ripper]

How important are UAE and Bahrain to the UCI?

 

[Cookster15]

Hey Cookster, what hrotha said is a pretty good summary. To what you noted in an earlier post, I actually think with the right skillful physician in place, right equipment, etc., you can manage things with the biopassport just fine. Altitude training camps are nice and helpful (for explaining some fluctuation)! Of course, you still need talent. In fact you need a combination of talents, the typical athletic kind, and the kind that make you a good responder.

You just don't know with someone like Gianetti. SD was doing some crazy stuff, not subtle at all. It will be interesting to see what comes up in the next few years.

Thanks Ripper, I don’t disagree. Yes the next few years will be interesting. So will the rest of this TdF.

 

[Savant12]

How important are UAE and Bahrain to the UCI?

There'll be a money trail somewhere.

 

[Cookster15]

What I don’t get is how with a good physician etc that you can manage performance level to see what we are seeing with one rider and yet still stay below the passport radar detector?

Stealth doping ! But it does look like the stealth expertise baton has been passed from Skyneos to JV (briefly) and now UAE. Obviously without talent it won’t work but I think you need more than one competitive advantage over other teams and GC riders to see what we are seeing.

 

[Froome]

To me, the only alien performance of pogacar was the itt on la planche des belles filles. Today i didn't see again nothing suspicious, i check pogacar's times on col de la romme and col de la colombiere, and i saw that he did 1 min and 12 more faster than the Schlecks brothers,contador,kloden in 2009 the sequence romme-colombiere, they weren't going full gas in 2009. And in 2018 dan martin and the gc favorites did a similar time on col de la colombiere and they didn't go full gas on colombiere and col de romme.
Obviously it was a amazing performance but i don't think it was suspicious, he did 6.3 w/kg on col de la romme, and 6.4 w/kg on col de la colombiere, reasonable for the talent of pogacar.

 

[Scarponi]

Was also said about a certain Ullrich who bursted onto the scene at 22 and won at 23. It went dowhill from there.

To be fair to the guy he has 4 TDFs if the freak show Lance didn't turn up.

 

[Escarabajo]

Well, you should doubt vdP as well, as some of his performances have been quite ridiculous. Having said that, I that at least today he didn't take the absolute pi$$ and is not TP radioactive.

At this point I have to say that anything looks normal compared with Pogacar.

 

[Scarponi]

I won't judge him until he does the Tour of Poland. One with no mountains, won by a sprinter. That's the true test of a GC rider.

What race did basso win almost everyday without mountains? Denmark?

 

[JosefK]

When Pogi wins his 8th TDF in a row, the UCI will retroactively reinstate Lance's 7 TDF wins and say "Let bygones be bygones."

 

[saganftw]

On Danish TV2's website, Riis is quoted "I don't know what to say, cause it didn't look normal..."

riis is just envious that somebody can grind big ring and have full head of hair at the same time

To me, the only alien performance of pogacar was the itt on la planche des belles filles. Today i didn't see again nothing suspicious, i check pogacar's times on col de la romme and col de la colombiere, and i saw that he did 1 min and 12 more faster than the Schlecks brothers,contador,kloden in 2009 the sequence romme-colombiere, they weren't going full gas in 2009. And in 2018 dan martin and the gc favorites did a similar time on col de la colombiere and they didn't go full gas on colombiere and col de romme.
Obviously it was a amazing performance but i don't think it was suspicious, he did 6.3 w/kg on col de la romme, and 6.4 w/kg on col de la colombiere, reasonable for the talent of pogacar.

isolated numbers arent that mindblowing, but in context they are extremely impressive, not just for pogacar (van aert did an excellent ride for somebody who is not in his top form) ... after yesterdays very hard all day racing, today was the same at times even pogacar was forced to close gaps and proper break wasnt established until 75km to go

we have been used to controlled racing so much, where favourites were allowed short efforts focus only on climbing - this year has been completely different, if pogacar was allowed to save himself for the last climb, big ring wouldnt be enough

 

[Ripper]

At this point I have to say that anything looks normal compared with Pogacar.

Yes, on the continuum he has set a new benchmark hasn't he?

 

[Ripper]

This explains it all (sorry if already posted). Does not sound like anything we've heard before:
https://www.businessinsider.com/defending-tour-de-france-champ-freakish-powers-recovery-2021-6

 

[Rackham]

This explains it all (sorry if already posted). Does not sound like anything we've heard before:
https://www.businessinsider.com/defending-tour-de-france-champ-freakish-powers-recovery-2021-6

Yeah, I'm now convinced.

The Science of Lance Armstrong (TV Movie 2005) - IMDb

What is Lance Armstrong's secret? | Science | The Guardian

Where Armstrong stands out is that he seems to have an innate capacity to train exceptionally hard, recover quickly and reap the fitness benefit.

Lance Armstrong Through A Physiological Lens: Hard Training Boosts Muscle Power 8% -- ScienceDaily

Seven-year study of Lance Armstrong shows hard training to raise maximum capacity and boost sub-maximal efficiency raised muscle power 8%. Add a weight/fat loss to help Tour de France climbing, and power gain rises to 18%. Researcher Edward Coyle of the University of Texas-Austin says possible reason for increase is change in percentage of type I muscle fibers, which also might account for Armstrong's apparent ease of pedaling despite very high cadence. No physiological changes from cancer, chemotherapy.

Etc. etc, i.e. throw in some pie charts, medical science lingua & some data pulled from le cul & voilà, job done.

So let's see whether this is another boom bust cycle like the last one (i.e. when the rocket fuel of the early 1990's got more & more out of control until their eventual downfall mid 2000's).

 

[JosefK]

This explains it all (sorry if already posted). Does not sound like anything we've heard before:
https://www.businessinsider.com/defending-tour-de-france-champ-freakish-powers-recovery-2021-6

Ah, yes. Mitochondrial function. That makes perfect sense. Also, no bilharzia--that's a relief!

 

[SafeBet]

What race did basso win almost everyday without mountains? Denmark?

Yes (won 4 out of 6 stages)

Post Danmark Rundt 2005 Stage 6 results

Ivan Basso is the winner of Post Danmark Rundt 2005, before Kurt-Asle Arvesen and Rory Sutherland. André Greipel is the winner of the final stage.

www.procyclingstats.com

 

[bNator]

Look kiddo, I understand that you get very angry because people are questioning your local Lance boy(btw that is the reason of this section if you dont like it dont come) and to be fair everybody must be presumed innocent until the contrary is demonstrated, no matter how Pantani-esque the performance may be, but you have to stop with the charade , you are embarrassing yourself.

Go,read Slavo> https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jii/4750978.0006.202/--spectre-of-balkan?rgn=main;view=fulltext

Yes, you dont like to be grouped with those "serbs/croats/macedonians" yuk!!, the same way the Serbs dont like to be grouped with the Moldovans, but guess what? Tough luck, everybody considers a FRY country as culturally Balkan and "eastern-european" . People will group Ljubljana with Zagreb, Belgrade, Kiev or Lublin not with Madrid, Amsterdam,Milan or London. When people in the "west" were dealing with John Mayor, Mitterrand or Felipe Gonzalez you have to somehow directly or indirectly deal with Milosevic and before him with Tito, it doesnt get more "Balkan " than that.

BTW I dont know what is your desire to be grouped with the "west" or with a fictional mittel-Europa (as if you have more in common with the Hungarians, Austrians and Germans than with the Croats and Serbs) , be proud of who you are , instead of wishing to be in the same group with the Italians and the English.

I am a Slovenian - I have no national pride, only a personal one. I don't care if one wants to think I come from a Soviet state, communist state, east Europe, Balkans. World is global and digital now and it is very easy to transcend the geographical and cultural context and circumstances you were born into - so they don't matter much anymore.

That being said, I do care when facts get butchered and there are a couple of geographical and historical facts we need to get straight here.

1. Balkans is a geographical term for a peninsula. Slovenia is not on Balkan peninsula. @topt was right here.
2. Balkans is also a cultural/political construct and Slovenia is a part of it.
3. Slovenia is historically tied to Austria and Hungary being part of the austro-Hungarian empire. The presence of these ties is very much felt today and we don’t need to be instructed by some internet wiseass that we should feel we have more in common with Serbs than we do with Austrians.
4. We also have a lot of ties with Italians. Italians have strong minority in Slovenia and vice-versa. In my wife’s school half the kids were Italian, she speaks fluent Italian, just like everyone else in the area. Again, thanks for letting us know that we should feel close to Belgrade, but Slovenians will typically feel more at home in Trieste…
5. Serbs are great people and Slovenia has a lot in common with them as well, especially language and origin. There are a couple of differences too, religion and alphabet being the most noticeable. These two point to the fact that cultural ties in the past were not as significant as one might expect given the countries are relatively close and share the same language group…

 

[Zoophonic]

True, Contador didn't launch long range attacks. But he destroyed his rivals on multiple MTFs. I'll re-find my love for this Tour if Pogi can continue to destroy everyone on a few of the remaining MTFs. If he sits on his lead to ride conservatively I'll be switching off.

On the flip side Pogi wasn't dominant in the TT. There is still a glimmer of hope to see a competition.

Really? I would call 19 seconds over a TT specialist at the top of his form on a flat course a dominant performance.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Where was this Formolo at the Giro?
I expect him to be one of the best on a long hilly stage, but that was probably his best climbing performance ever, as a domestique.

The hard race from the start probably helped him and we know that he has a good engine and great endurance, but still...

 

[Cookster15]

This explains it all (sorry if already posted). Does not sound like anything we've heard before:
https://www.businessinsider.com/defending-tour-de-france-champ-freakish-powers-recovery-2021-6

I’m not laughing. It seems like Lance level delusion all over again.

 

[Riek s]

I’m not laughing. It seems like Lance level delusion all over again.

yes. also luckily for Pogacar that this recovery gene/anomaly manifested the moment he hit the pro's. (before that he didn't seem to have this 'talent')

 

[Bolder]

Slovenia, like it or not, is an Eastern European country. Just like Hungary. But that's just a convenient Cold War way to account for political divisions, in the sense that "Western Europe" orbited around the NATO alliance and "Eastern Europe" around Moscow. I don't think that's in question.

I've been to Slovenia on business trips and the western part feels a bit like Western Europe, but the eastern and southern parts are more Balkan feeling. Regardless, I loved it and found Slovenians to be excellent business hosts, very pragmatic in an appealing way!

Back to the immediate topic at hand: We saw an amazing performance yesterday that can be partly explained by rival teams who had been fatally weakened (Ineos, TJV) and had no strategy, and partly by a previous, grueling stage in which TP could have been put under serious pressure but was let off the hook (Movistar?) a bit, putting his rivals on the back foot and giving him a breather.

That said, TP's performance since joining the WT have been...extraterrestrial. But since we don't know what a clean peloton with modern training and equipment looks like, it's going to be all conjecture unless he fails atest or somebody spills the beans...