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Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

Page 95 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Suit yourself, sir.

But when the staff are known players from the who's who of (blood and other chemical products) doping, the riders smash 90s climbing times and Pog can light up any terrain from February on then probably raising a couple eyebrows is okay, no?

Also sky/ineos has got its fair share of flack around here. Jumbo in more recent years too.

This tour is a total sh1tshow, and obviously this is not only on UAE.
Tweaked that one sentence for you
 
Sepp!

But more seriously, while not the fastest of records, all the 90's stuff is insane.
Not all the 90s stuff is insane because they didn't always go all out and overall mountain stages were a lot longer and harder. Val Louron in 1997 came after Aubisque, Tourmalet and Aspin and they only had 15 guys cresting Aubisque together. The original record would be pretty pedestrian for a fresh climb.
 
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But then again I am wondering what can give you that sort of improvement in just one day?

And if it exists, why not Pogi but just McNulty? Or is it easier to take risk with non-leaders?
They can still do blood bags and dilute or remove directly after the stage. No idea if they’re actually doing it but that’s also what could’ve happened on PDBF 2020 for example. With heat like this any ratio based test (aka a blood bag, as opposed to looking for specific compounds) they do directly after a stage is going to be completely unreliable since riders’ blood volume and hematocrit are swinging by such massive amounts, so it’s probably easy to get away with.
 
Before the TdF, in an interview Pogacar said he liked the look of stage 18 with the Aubisque-Spandelles-Hautacam consecutive climbs with no valley. He said it suited him well.

This is wildly speculative of course (hey, we're in the clinic, right?), but what if the domestiques got the boost for stage 17 to make the tempo as hard as possible for everyone, giving UAE's rivals tired legs, then the leader aka new Merckx will get his little Planche de Belles Filles-esque whatever super booster tomorrow & go on a raid...

Live & hope, i.e. if we're going to watch a super doped product it might as well be as crazy as possible. Because I was a bit concerned for Pog today, i.e. he didn't look so good behind McNulty at the end there. This is unusual & disappointing from an entertainment perspective.
 
Before the TdF, in an interview Pogacar said he liked the look of stage 18 with the Aubisque-Spandelles-Hautacam consecutive climbs with no valley. He said it suited him well.

This is wildly speculative of course (hey, we're in the clinic, right?), but what if the domestiques got the boost for stage 17 to make the tempo as hard as possible for everyone, giving UAE's rivals tired legs, then the leader aka new Merckx will get his little Planche de Belles Filles-esque whatever super booster tomorrow & go on a raid...

Live & hope, i.e. if we're going to watch a super doped product it might as well be as crazy as possible. Because I was a bit concerned for Pog today, i.e. he didn't look so good behind McNulty at the end there. This is unusual & disappointing from an entertainment perspective.

Yeah, some top-fuel action is needed tomorrow. Hopefully Pogi has a good day!
 
Before the TdF, in an interview Pogacar said he liked the look of stage 18 with the Aubisque-Spandelles-Hautacam consecutive climbs with no valley. He said it suited him well.

This is wildly speculative of course (hey, we're in the clinic, right?), but what if the domestiques got the boost for stage 17 to make the tempo as hard as possible for everyone, giving UAE's rivals tired legs, then the leader aka new Merckx will get his little Planche de Belles Filles-esque whatever super booster tomorrow & go on a raid...

Live & hope, i.e. if we're going to watch a super doped product it might as well be as crazy as possible. Because I was a bit concerned for Pog today, i.e. he didn't look so good behind McNulty at the end there. This is unusual & disappointing from an entertainment perspective.

I hope they both his the NOS tomorrow and blast off into outer space with multiple record climbs. At least UAE finally started playing Jumbo’s game domestique-wise even if only for a stage or two.
 
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Just remember....somebody has to win.

A few years back you were all whining because Sky had an expensive mountain train who ground away the opposition's support.

You can't have it both ways.

Actually all it wouldve taken is Vingo falling over Pog or vice versa on the cobbles 2014 style for us to be treated to a 2nd Thomas win with a peakskytrain perfomance... God what a dreadful thought... I take whatever is happening here (and what fuels it) every day of the year over that.
 
Judging by 1775 m/h of VAM on 7.3 % slope it was more like 6.4 w/kg. Still pretty impressive but not extraordinary.
Well, I've watched doped cyclists do some unreal things all my life, but this performance by McNulty was even beyond unreal. Something like when Landis rode the entire peloton off his wheel over five climbs in the Alps on stage 17 sixteen years ago. Except, of course, that Landis was the big favorite to win the Tour in 2006, and McNulty is more like McNobody. I mean, an otherwise completely underperforming dom suddenly found his legs overnight and then just shredded the whole peloton to small pieces.







 
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It is extraordinary, but it's not the insanity they want to make it out to be.
It's insanity for someone who never had the legs to stay with his leader thus far in the race. And it was not for lack of trying. He died in the Granon stage while trying to bridge to the Pog/Rog/Vingo group.

Yesterday he paced the two best riders in the world for almost an hour! I don't know how you can normalize this. It's Dennis on Stelvio level of absurdity, even for a rider with pedigree and climbing talent like McNulty.
 
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It's insanity for someone who never had the legs to stay with his leader thus far in the race. And it was not for lack of trying. He died in the Granon stage while trying to bridge to the Pog/Rog/Vingo group.

Yesterday he paced the two best riders in the world for almost an hour! I don't know how you can normalize this. It's Dennis on Stelvio level of absurdity, even for a rider with pedigree and climbing talent like McNulty.
I mean as in isolated performance compared to the most ridiculous performances in a year/decade. The original 6.58 W/kg made no sense as the third climb of the day after previous climbs got raced hard.

The context and varibales around it, are ofcourse completely ridiculous.

McNulty uploaded his ride on Strava by the way, he did like 429 W on Val Louron, which if his weight is correct at 69, is only 6.29W/kg.

I think what made the stage so hard is the fast pace and rapid succession on Aspin and Hourquette. Nobody expected a hard pace on Hourquette, yet Kuss did 6W/kg on the uphill stretches while drafting. It basically turned into a Carpegna sitation where everyone who starts struggles at 6W/kg gets completely suffocated while the 2 to 3 dudes who can do more than thet ride below their limit and recover better inbetween the climbs.

I think the most surprising thing about yesterday, is that UAE suddenly had Bjerg and McNulty flying like crazy while Pogacar wasn't better than the rest of the Tour.
 
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