Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[Netserk]

For years the UCI has demonstrated its unwillingness to pursue biological passport cases when there's even a tiny a chance the defender might mount a proper defense or win a potential trial. I wouldn't be surprised if values that would have tripped the wire ten years ago were being ignored now. I don't think this explains everything by itself, but it might not be a coincidence that antidoping has pretty much vanished from the forefront of public discourse compared to what it was like immediately after the Armstrong debacle. I wonder if there are up-to-date statistics on the yearly number of OOC and biological passport tests in the last decade?

I think the Kreuziger case scared them, Froome's too. I think the cost of litigation against the richest athletes (and teams) could blow the entire anti-doping budget. And if such a rider was suspended, but the case overturned, the suit for damages could be enormous.

Then it's far safer to use the passport to guide targeted testing.

 

[meat puppet]

I think probably just a theory based on the evidence from Aderlass, but it's assumed soluble or synthetic haemoglobin is being used by UAE & Bahrain which can't be detected by the bio passport and that due to Covid restrictions last year and this year within the Tour de France, the chance of being found in possession of it is slim. Add to the fact it doesn't even look like a doping product. La Flamme Rouge has a good article on this today.

Tour: Pogacar comme Riis, et Colbrelli, un sprinter à Tignes – Marc Kluszczynski – la flamme rouge

laflammerouge.com

Thanks. Giannetti has first hand experience of perfluorocarbons too.

In several aderlass reports from last autumn the synthetic haemoglobin is also mentioned as a relatively newly discovered method. Allegedly it was in use already ca 2016-17. So probably common knowledge around the peloton.

Were this to be part of the cocktail, dumoulin's fcuk this *** expressions after the last TT in 2020 TDF would gain a new context.

 

[samhocking]

are there any studies that show your power goes down in the rain, honest question I dont know ?

Generally if it's raining there is low barometric pressure so aerobic performance increases due to more oxygen able to get into the blood and of course lower pressure is less dense air so less resistance. Wet roads slightly faster than dry too I believe. These effects are for everyone though within their physiological makup. Would be about 0.5km faster per hour on a rainy day than dry high pressure day ignoring temperature of course which is a bit more of a variable.

 

[Tobi]

I hate accuse someone of doping without proof but that performance have to make everyone think theres something going on. I have watched cycling since the 90s and this
definitely feels like a performance that would fit in another era especially when you also bring a name like Giannetti into it. I like Pogacar and have nothing against him this kind of riding is atleast more entertaining then defensive Sky riding. UCI seems like a joke at this point to be honest. I know this is ironic coming from me when i have a Ullrich profile pic.

 

[Northumberland]

Well, i did make that comment before knowing he broke the record of Vino/Mayo. But, it appears that indeed the wind was very advantageous today, and we're only first week still. I can imagine they would do the same climb noticeably slower in week 3.

My main issue is, that i believe that the number of people in the clinic threads who actually know what they are talking about, is negligible. I certainly do not count myself as one of them, but i can easily tell people are quick to draw conclusions, when it concerns a rider they don't like. This entire subforum is riddled with hypocrisy. Pointing fingers at one rider, but not another, all for the sake of a clean sport. Right. This irks me to no end and i've tried to ignore the clinic many times in the past, but once every few months something draws my attention, and it's usually the same crap. But maybe tomorrow we'll be able to post a funny tweet by Vayer to make it all worthwhile.

What qualifies someone to know what they are talking about in your opinion? If you are looking at investing in a company you don't need to know every nut and bolt but its accepted due diligence to look at management and track records. It's fair to apply that principal to outlier performances in cycling. If you accept that, how could it look any more like a red flag than it does?

 

[Rackham]

I hate accuse someone of doping without proof but that performance have to make everyone think theres something going on. I have watched cycling since the 90s and this
definitely feels like a performance that would fit in another era especially when you also bring a name like Giannetti into it. I like Pogacar and have nothing against him this kind of riding is atleast more entertaining then defensive Sky riding. UCI seems like a joke at this point to be honest. I know this is ironic coming from me when i have a Ullrich profile pic.

No shame in the Ullrich pic.

I think if we're all honest we'd admit the fact we've supported dopers throughout the careers of our favorite riders. But there's doping & "doping", i.e. I now recognize what I call a franchise doper when I see one & this is a perfect example. When I say "franchise", I mean a rider who ticks certain base physical + moral boxes & was selected to become a pure money making machine for all parties involved via crushing undisputed wins & sporting exploits. In modern cycling history the 2 who stand out the most are of course Lance & Froome. Now Pogacar is that rider (you see riders like Rasmussen or Landis failed because they never had the right backing & set-up to protect them, even if their performance was on point). It happens in other sports as well

Giannetti + UAE have a goldmine with Pogacar & vice versa. Classics, Grand Tours, Monuments etc. & all the money-making endorsements & business contracts which these guys crave. It'll be relentless.

Ullrich meanwhile had one promising Tour (1996), one thermonuclear destruction Tour (97), one screw-up Tour (98) & then a load of Tours where was used as a punching bag by Lance Armstrong who needed some unfortunate rival to repeatedly pummel. On that front, I now suspect in Pogacar's case they're very disappointed Roglic crashed out because Pogacar lost the opportunity to deliver a massive blow against his number one rival.

It looks better on TV when there's at least someone "closer" to humiliate.

 

[bNator]

Disclaimer: Even though I am from Slovenia, I am not really a Pogacar fan (yet) and last year I quietly hoped we would get caught at the end of the tour so Roglic would win it after the relegation. Hell, even now I would almost kind of prefer he gets caught and Roglic has one TDF win rather than Pogacar having 2.

But this logic of him being an outlier pointing to the fact he's been doping. I don't know - I mean doesn't every sport have outliers? Even in non-endurance sports where doping is not very beneficial, there are certain individuals who are aliens comparing to everyone else. I mean look at Tennis, Football, Golf, you name it. In every sport at some point there were individuals who stood out. Why not Pogacar?

I'm not saying he's clean but if the argument of him being doped consists only of him being an outlier, that's a pretty weak argument in my opinion. Even if that argument stands true for some guys that doped in the past, the following logic can also be applied:

• not all the guys who doped were outliers AND
• not all outliers doped.

I think it's not unreasonable to be a bit suspicious but some of you guys here seem 100% certain he'a doping. And then there's another question - how can you keep watching cycling this way?

Edit:

No shame in the Ullrich pic.

I think if we're all honest we'd admit the fact we've supported dopers throughout the careers of our favorite riders. But there's doping & "doping", i.e. I now recognize what I call a franchise doper when I see one & this is a perfect example. When I say "franchise", I mean a rider who ticks certain base physical + moral boxes & was selected to become a pure money making machine for all parties involved via crushing undisputed wins & sporting exploits. In modern cycling history the 2 who stand out the most are of course Lance & Froome. Now Pogacar is that rider (you see riders like Rasmussen or Landis failed because they never had the right backing & set-up to protect them, even if their performance was on point). It happens in other sports as well

Giannetti + UAE have a goldmine with Pogacar & vice versa. Classics, Grand Tours, Monuments etc. & all the money-making endorsements & business contracts which these guys crave. It'll be relentless.

Ullrich meanwhile had one promising Tour (1996), one thermonuclear destruction Tour (97), one screw-up Tour (98) & then a load of Tours where was used as a punching bag by Lance Armstrong who needed some unfortunate rival to repeatedly pummel. On that front, I now suspect in Pogacar's case they're very disappointed Roglic crashed out because Pogacar lost the opportunity to deliver a massive blow against his number one rival.

It looks better on TV when there's at least someone "closer" to humiliate.

An interesting take and a very possible one, but there's at least one positive aspect of Roglic DFNing rather than Pogacar humiliating him. He's still very unpopular in his home country. It's very much possible he doesn't care about that (though him attending Tour of Slovenia and national championships point to the contrary), but he's beginning to gain popularity rapidly now that Roglic is out of the picture...

 

[velobob5411]

Sorry if this was already discussed - but I think part of the issue is that no one has ever established what the acceptable limits of human performance are in terms of cycling performance and we don't have transparent access to data in order to judge performances. If you take a comparison with weight lifting - if a 5'9" guy weighing 140lbs walked into a gym and bench pressed 600lbs everyone would know without a doubt that something strange was going on. It's just not humanly possible. When we watch these stages and see Pogacar riding away from the field while nose breathing and barely looking under strain we have no immediate way of judging his performance (unlike in the weight lifting example you can add up the pounds on the plates). If we had numbers going up on the screen showing something like 10, 20, 30, 40 minute power to mass (which we could easily have - using power meters calibrated and issued by the race organizer which are sealed and tamperproof) - we could then see right away when a performance was outside the limits of the believable. It's so obvious that Pog is not performing within believable bounds that I haven't bothered to read all the estimates and the counter arguments about wind, equipment, training, diet, etc. It's a waste of time. Pog just bench pressed 600lbs and I'm not buying it.

 

[Froome]

Sorry if this was already discussed - but I think part of the issue is that no one has ever established what the acceptable limits of human performance are in terms of cycling performance and we don't have transparent access to data in order to judge performances. If you take a comparison with weight lifting - if a 5'9" guy weighing 140lbs walked into a gym and bench pressed 600lbs everyone would know without a doubt that something strange was going on. It's just not humanly possible. When we watch these stages and see Pogacar riding away from the field while nose breathing and barely looking under strain we have no immediate way of judging his performance (unlike in the weight lifting example you can add up the pounds on the plates). If we had numbers going up on the screen showing something like 10, 20, 30, 40 minute power to mass (which we could easily have - using power meters calibrated and issued by the race organizer which are sealed and tamperproof) - we could then see right away when a performance was outside the limits of the believable. It's so obvious that Pog is not performing within believable bounds that I haven't bothered to read all the estimates and the counter arguments about wind, equipment, training, diet, etc. It's a waste of time. Pog just bench pressed 600lbs and I'm not buying it.

It was a good thing if pogi does a lab physiological test like pinot and show to the world how is his engine.

 

[SafeBet]

I think it's not unreasonable to be a bit suspicious but some of you guys here seem 100% certain he'a doping. And then there's another question - how can you keep watching cycling this way?

Because it's fun?

 

[topt]

I'm done with it. I've seen this before. In fact, I've seen this before many times. We all raised our eyebrows when we saw it. We also heared the enthousiasm of the commentators back then, same as we hear today; "fantastic" "what a talent" "one of the best ever" etc. We know the (mainstream) sportspress won't dig in to this, these "miracles" sell their papers so they will cuddle up with the winner. They will keep saying that there's no proof, article after article about marginal gains, superhuman (but natural) recovery capacity, best trainingmethods etc. But we all know what it is. Not all, because some say he was already was a monster in the youth classes (which he was not, he was just a 'ok / good' cyclist). But most of us know it when we see it. Just LOOK at the guy during and after the TT, look at him. No sweat, judging from his face expression got no pain, just look at him watching to the right directly into the camera. What do you see? Someone who's not suffering, in fact, he was comfortable, relaxt, just cruising on his bike enjoying the view left and right and. After the finish look at him again, no sweat, no red face, not out of breath. Now look at the other 160 or so riders. What an absolute joke. And then there was that mountain stage in which he destroyed everybody in a way not even Lance Armstrong did. I'm done with it, we are back at 90's/00's leven of doping.

But what do they use? Hey, we have mRNA vaccins now, 20 years ago that was unthinkable. There must be something so advanced compared to the 90's/00's we cannot even imagine right now. And it's happening in plain sight, again! And we can say yeah but MVDP, WvA, REV, ALA, but they give it their all, they drop dead after the finish line and they battle it out with other great riders. Pogacar is in a league of his own and not even breaking a sweat. I will never watch a GT with him in it anymore, waiste of time.

you would have really loved Vockler, based on this he was clean for sure

 

[Rackham]

I think it's not unreasonable to be a bit suspicious but some of you guys here seem 100% certain he'a doping. And then there's another question - how can you keep watching cycling this way?

Le Pot Belge, i.e. cycling has had doping since forever & its most famous champions were dopers. First time the authorities introduced dope controls, the peloton went on strike. It's just the way it is. For example I supported Andy Schleck & I'm 99% certain he juiced it pretty hard in his attempts to beat Contador. But at least the racing was exciting.

Take last year's Vuelta for example: I'm sure the top 10 riders at the finish were all on something with their down team doctors & program, but the racing was tight, riders appeared tired by the finish & all involved had their week points & strong points. I can't speak for others, but I absolutely loved Roglic versus Carapaz on the Moncalvillo. It was epic. From a purely selfish spectator's point of view, it made every stage exciting because the "glorious uncertainty of sport" (as the French call it) was intact. Climbers could climb, sprinters could sprint & everyone was pretty much in their "expected" place, even old man Valverde.

Then you get riders like Pogacar (with the right backing) & teams like UAE, Bahrain & Quick-Step who show up at the Tour de France & turn it into a massacre. Does Pogacar have a really high base level? Probably. That's why he's in yellow & his teammates are his domestiques. But there's always something else going on when one sportsman is absolutely nuking the field like this.

Either Pogacar is an absolute once in lifetime talent & just so far ahead of everyone he makes superhuman performances look effortless (but then we could ask "why" he never showed this in Basque Country a couple of months ago? i.e. where he was beaten in a TT by Roglic & had equal climbing abilities) or at the Tour de France he has a special program & goes above & beyond what the rest are doing. Based on the sh*t history of the sport, it's the second option. If I'm wrong, he's unique in history. Because all the rest of the "supermen thermonuclear dominators" had the same traits: better doping programs than the rest & the political backing to make the exploits stick.

An interesting take and a very possible one, but there's at least one positive aspect of Roglic DFNing rather than Pogacar humiliating him. He's still very unpopular in his home country. It's very much possible he doesn't care about that (though him attending Tour of Slovenia and national championships point to the contrary), but he's beginning to gain popularity rapidly now that Roglic is out of the picture...

Amazingly, Pogacar is even getting supporters in France as well, specifically from the sort of sports fan who loves a nice little massacre. They're the same ones who supported Froome & support guys like Nadal, Djokovic, Ronaldo, Messi, Usain Bolt etc. & go wild for superhuman exploits. Lance had fans like that (as did Michael Schumacher). All I'd ask from a Pogacar fan is a bit of honesty regarding doping, because it's the ones who not only support riders like that but also vehemently deny dope is involved who really make it a bitter situation.

 

[luckyboy]

Covid restrictions are great to dodge doping questions eh!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1412053437613805570

View: https://twitter.com/thijszonneveld/status/1412053437613805570


"Exactly 12 minutes for international media. Press secretary asks to submit questions in advance. The press secretary selects a few journos with questions that are not too difficult, Pogacar answers with a few generalities. Past."

For years the UCI has demonstrated its unwillingness to pursue biological passport cases when there's even a tiny a chance the defender might mount a proper defense or win a potential trial. I wouldn't be surprised if values that would have tripped the wire ten years ago were being ignored now. I don't think this explains everything by itself, but it might not be a coincidence that antidoping has pretty much vanished from the forefront of public discourse compared to what it was like immediately after the Armstrong debacle. I wonder if there are up-to-date statistics on the yearly number of OOC and biological passport tests in the last decade?

And it is a lot harder/less enticing to go to court against teams funded by a billionaire or middle east states, if they are really trying..

 

[topt]

Sorry if this was already discussed - but I think part of the issue is that no one has ever established what the acceptable limits of human performance are in terms of cycling performance and we don't have transparent access to data in order to judge performances. If you take a comparison with weight lifting - if a 5'9" guy weighing 140lbs walked into a gym and bench pressed 600lbs everyone would know without a doubt that something strange was going on. It's just not humanly possible. When we watch these stages and see Pogacar riding away from the field while nose breathing and barely looking under strain we have no immediate way of judging his performance (unlike in the weight lifting example you can add up the pounds on the plates). If we had numbers going up on the screen showing something like 10, 20, 30, 40 minute power to mass (which we could easily have - using power meters calibrated and issued by the race organizer which are sealed and tamperproof) - we could then see right away when a performance was outside the limits of the believable. It's so obvious that Pog is not performing within believable bounds that I haven't bothered to read all the estimates and the counter arguments about wind, equipment, training, diet, etc. It's a waste of time. Pog just bench pressed 600lbs and I'm not buying it.

Fignon in 84, I wonder how much did he bench press

 

[saganftw]

Because it's fun?

not only its fun but its also a very welcomed shift from past decade where sky train would do basically same thing - uncontested win BUT in an infinitely more boring manner - that was as unwatchable as it gets so i do appreciate mvdp,alaphillipe,van aert, pogacar and the lot

also one notable difference is that im not being lectured on marginal gains, in a way pogacar is way more honest than sky ever was, he just does his thing and then we dont hear about magical socks that can get you 20 watts - incidentaly if i asked you to list of the least likely tdf winners ever, froome,wiggo and thomas would be unchallenged at the top

if you watched any sport for past few decades you would have to be insane to not understand that doping is omnipresent, so i can live with that, what i cannot live with is when the clowns of the past start honking from their comically large horses - gcn didnt even take 24 hours to bring up suspiscion about pogacar, meanwhile good ol cav is just amazing story and froome is back to his barloworld self pittyparty

all im saying is nothing has changed from the past, we are just recycling the same story, but now its at least balls to the wall

 

[topt]

I guess cycling has become the only sport in the world where its own fans accuse every outlier of doping; I mean based on history understandable but its really sucks.

 

[Notarobot]

you would have really loved Vockler, based on this he was clean for sure

I know it's not exactly science the way I form my opinion, but you can tell someone is suffering. Pogacar is not, the rest is.

 

[SafeBet]

I guess cycling has become the only sport in the world where its own fans accuse every outlier of doping; I mean based on history understandable but its really sucks.

It's not the only sport. Even in this forum you'll find a ton of other sports fans highlighting how doping is pretty much ubiquitous.

 

[hrotha]

It really isn't that hard to keep the sporting aspect of cycling separate from the doping stuff and to enjoy the races regardless of what you know or suspect might be going on behind the scenes, but also I actually kinda miss the days when antidoping itself was fun. Every week could bring new highly entertaining drama. Much better than GoT in its prime.

 

[No_Balls]

I'm done with it. I've seen this before. In fact, I've seen this before many times. We all raised our eyebrows when we saw it. We also heared the enthousiasm of the commentators back then, same as we hear today; "fantastic" "what a talent" "one of the best ever" etc. We know the (mainstream) sportspress won't dig in to this, these "miracles" sell their papers so they will cuddle up with the winner. They will keep saying that there's no proof, article after article about marginal gains, superhuman (but natural) recovery capacity, best trainingmethods etc. But we all know what it is. Not all, because some say he was already was a monster in the youth classes (which he was not, he was just a 'ok / good' cyclist). But most of us know it when we see it. Just LOOK at the guy during and after the TT, look at him. No sweat, judging from his face expression got no pain, just look at him watching to the right directly into the camera. What do you see? Someone who's not suffering, in fact, he was comfortable, relaxt, just cruising on his bike enjoying the view left and right and. After the finish look at him again, no sweat, no red face, not out of breath. Now look at the other 160 or so riders. What an absolute joke. And then there was that mountain stage in which he destroyed everybody in a way not even Lance Armstrong did. I'm done with it, we are back at 90's/00's leven of doping.

But what do they use? Hey, we have mRNA vaccins now, 20 years ago that was unthinkable. There must be something so advanced compared to the 90's/00's we cannot even imagine right now. And it's happening in plain sight, again! And we can say yeah but MVDP, WvA, REV, ALA, but they give it their all, they drop dead after the finish line and they battle it out with other great riders. Pogacar is in a league of his own and not even breaking a sweat. I will never watch a GT with him in it anymore, waiste of time.

And this is why you wont see a proper fight for the top spot and not even a challenge. They know it, you know it, everybody knows it. You just cant say it yet but has to obey the partyline.

I dont think the program is that widespread though and thats why it looks so ridicoulus with one freak racing in his own freakshow. The others just dont fight cause they know what it is about and its just a waste of everybodys time this.

 

[topt]

It's not the only sport. Even in this forum you'll find a ton of other sports fans highlighting how doping is pretty much ubiquitous.

it more like we cycling fans are looking at outliers in other sports, go on lets say tennis forum and you will not find a "clinic" there and I am 100% sure there is no less doping in tennis

 

[saganftw]

I guess cycling has become the only sport in the world where its own fans accuse every outlier of doping; I mean based on history understandable but its really sucks.

the only difference is bringing up doping in cycling is not frowned upon, you do that *** with other sport it usually goes two ways - doesnt matter because doping doesnt make you more skilled or its just who cares - when deandre ayton got popped for doping he got like 20 game suspension, in NFL its usually about 4 games but there is NO LONGTERM consequence - you get more for weed

i think a lot of it is tied to money, athletes are just too damn profitable to bust them, cycling is rather modest in comparison, if you wanted to bust chairman lemao james thats billions of dollars on the line, nobody is interested in that, you cannot have him not playing - i read long time ago, that when michael jordan played in a city it generated 1 billion dollars worth of business - times 41 ...a little pill here or there is nothing

 

[Rackham]

all im saying is nothing has changed from the past, we are just recycling the same story, but now its at least balls to the wall

Sure, but it's "too much" & too blunt. The guys at Bahrain in particular are total idiots. There's no other way of looking at it (Colbrelli 3rd on an alpine stage? Wtf it's like Hincapie winning a mountain stage all over again). I mean this sort of stuff can bring the sport down because it raises far too many questions. Pogacar is the king of the suspension of disbelief. It's like the guys running those teams think they can package & sell the same sh*t from the 1990's & 2000's & no one will notice. Giannetti has his new Ricco & he's loving it.

FYI, I hated Sky & still do. Froome was a joke & his wins were horrible to watch (as was Froome). But instead of giving everyone some breathing room & good racing now that Froome is done, we get served Pogacar by the guys who sat on the peripheral whilst Sky was dominating (Giannetti & the Lampre team which is now UAE), i.e. creators of the new "once in a lifetime" talent with unequalled physiological characteristics (according to the propaganda they want us to swallow).

This isn't just about some of us bitching & moaning about doping, it's about the fact we're probably one more yellow jersey scandal away from serious problems for the sport. And if they're not caught, we're still left with a sh*t Tour de France with mutantman Pogacar ridding around France like he's a tourist on a casual bike ride. It's not good however you look at it.

 

[saganftw]

Sure, but it's "too much" & too blunt. The guys at Bahrain in particular are total idiots. There's no other way of looking at it (Colbrelli 3rd on an alpine stage? Wtf it's like Hincapie winning a mountain stage all over again). I mean this sort of stuff can bring the sport down because it raises far too many questions. Pogacar is the king of the suspension of disbelief. It's like the guys running those teams think they can package & sell the same sh*t from the 1990's & 2000's & no one will notice. Giannetti has his new Ricco & he's loving it.

FYI, I hated Sky & still do. Froome was a joke & his wins were horrible to watch (as was Froome). But instead of giving everyone some breathing room & good racing now that Froome is done, we get served Pogacar by the guys who sat on the peripheral whilst Sky was dominating (Giannetti & the Lampre team which is now UAE), i.e. creators of the new "once in a lifetime" talent with unequalled physiological characteristics (according to the propaganda they want us to swallow).

This isn't just about some of us bitching & moaning about doping, it's about the fact we're probably one more yellow jersey scandal away from serious problems for the sport. And if they're not caught, we're still left with a sh*t Tour de France with mutantman Pogacar ridding around France like he's a tourist on a casual bike ride. It's not good however you look at it.

im not saying its good, im saying its never been good and i dont see why it would change - instead of donkey to racehorse, now we have a racehorse to racehorse with a rocket up his ass but the recipe is the same, its just somebody elses turn right now

one thing im not gonna do is acting like im *** and i forgot past 25 years of watching cycling and JUST NOW IS RIDICULOUS, it always has been

 

[No_Balls]

how can you keep watching cycling this way?

I cant and thats why i’ve been off from the sports in three-four years. I decided to sit out the Froome years because it was either soul crushing boring or frankly an insult to my intelligence every time i saw him on a bike or listening to the cheerleaders in media who pretends the sports never had any problem or instigating a bit of healthy scepicism.

I actually turned on the first mountain stage this Tour for the first time in some years knowing that Froome is back to his normal Barloworld levels wrapped up in some excuses. What do i see instead? Another best ever candidate presenting himself with seemingly endless abilities he can do on a bike and the media back to being cheerleaders and ”surprised” (ok our commentators talked like they knew what was going on tbf. They just cant go out and say it).