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Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

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So his performance is normal? correct?
Of course it's not normal. Why would you think that? But at the same time we shouldn't over exaggerate. Pogacar is not some nobody who couldn't time trial before. And his performance has to be put in the context that the two pre-race favourites - Dumoulin and Roglic - absolutely tanked on the climb. Pogacar could have won the race overall, climbing slower than Van Aert.

Don't get me wrong, it was a ridiculous performance. But I think that it looks even more extreme because certain other riders failed hard.
 
It's not like saying that at all; literally one of the worst analogies I have ever seen.

Someone who can win TTs aged 21 against a decent field is clearly a specialist. If you didn't realize that he was a specialist before today, then you should have been paying more attention tbh, because lots of people pointed it out in the race threads.

Prior to this he'd never won a WT TT.

He'd won his own national TT beating only one big name, Roglic, by 9 seconds.

I'm struggling to see how this makes him a specialist in the WT field.
 
It's not really about how good he is at time trials. Time trialling is something you can really improve through work and he's young. It's the fact that he beat time trial specialists and a mtf tt specialist by 1.20 / 2 minutes, while there are no such margins among the next riders - not in the whole field on this stage I think.
That in addition with the pure output numbers and absolute times which make it unlikely that this was a weak field.
 
Of course he's a specialist. He's won TTs at 21 years of age, against some of the best riders in the world.
Of course he is NOT a specialist. He's been a great climber with a great ITT... for a climber. Not a worldbeater on an TT bike. Far from it.
Maybe Dumo could have gone a bit faster on the climb had he changed bikes. Maybe van Aert started a bit too slow on the flat. Maybe Roglic didn't have his best day. But acting like any of his previous ITT performances made him a "specialist" that would not only rival ACTUAL specialists, but completely ridicule ALL of them... yup, a bit hard to swallow this.
 
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Of course he is NOT a specialist. He's been a great climber with a great ITT... for a climber. Not a worldbeater on an TT bike. Far from it.
Maybe Dumo could have gone a bit faster on the climb had he changed bikes. Maybe van Aert started a bit too slow on the flat. Maybe Roglic didn't have his best day. But acting like any of his previous ITT performances made him a "specialist" that would not only rival ACTUAL specialists, but completely ridicule ALL of them... yup, a bit hard to swallow this.
TT results in the last two years:

5th, 18th, 1st, 11th, 1st, 1st

I think you have pretty high standards for what a specialist is if a 21 year old with those results doesn't count.
 
He's 21 and has won time trials. That in itself is extremely rare. He's had far better TT results than riders like Dumoulin, Martin or Cancellara had aged 21. He's clearly a specialist.
He only won the national championships this year. The first post-Corona race, so not very representative. His prior TT results were decent, but not great. As a junior, he was mediocre.
If you want to lie, make sure people can’t verify what you’re claiming.
 
Sep 19, 2020
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It's about time we address Pogacars remarkable rise since he joined UAE in 2019.

His first season as a junior wasn't anything special, but we have to remember that he was born later in year (September) which is a disadvantage at that age.
In his second season he definitely proved his talent by winning the Giro della Lunigiana.
However, in the entire season he only won two stages and never put any distance on his competitors.
His time trial abilities were less impressive. A 25th and 68th spot.

His first season as a U23 rider wasn't too great either.
He won a few youth jerseys, but didn't record a single stage win.

His second season was definitely better, but still hit and miss.
He won the Tour de l'Avenir, but didn't record a stage win.
He also finished 7th at the WC road race.
Promising, but not exceptional.

Then he moved to UAE. Its CEO is Mauro Gianetti, possibly the dirtiest rider and sports director in history.
Suddenly he started to win stage races (Algarve, California, and individual mountain stages in the Vuelta against the likes of Valverde and Roglic.
He also became a much better time trialist beating Mohoric and Tratnik in the Slovenian championship.

Give me a break.
I am with you on this, as soon as i saw him cross the finish line and Roglic was so far behind i sad to my self. This has not been done the right way. It`s very unlikely for this to happen, to take almost 2 minutes, the one behind and then another one between them. To take the 57 seconds from the start he had to gain 1,6 seconds for each kilometer so he must have gained somewhere around 3 seconds each kilometer. I say it again, 3 SECONDS EACH KILOMETER. That is insane on this level. No i strongley belive today, this morning somewhere in Tadej body a needle was inserted and blood from another time wa changing place with other bloodcells.
 
For me, people comparing it to Lemond/Fignon, all you should do is compare the celebration. To me, Pogacar 'celebrated' like he's won pass the parcel by holding on for a couple of seconds longer than he should have. Looked like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar, almost realising that now he had to justify his brazenness. He needed 1.6 secs per km and ended up with 3. That, as Rob Hatch said, 'is a madness'.

I remember Walsh saying that the journos at Hautacam all looked at each in disbelief at THAT performance? I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in that room today...
 
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TT results in the last two years:

5th, 18th, 1st, 11th, 1st, 1st

I think you have pretty high standards for what a specialist is if a 21 year old with those results doesn't count.
Counting both Slovenian nationals which were against b/c-tier ITT'ers last year, and a specific mountain ITT right after lockdown this year isn't exactly helping your case. And todays win is exactly the one under scrutiny, so i wouldn't really add that to the list to prove he was a good ITT'er before today.
 
He's 21 and has won time trials. That in itself is extremely rare. He's had far better TT results than riders like Dumoulin, Martin or Cancellara had aged 21. He's clearly a specialist.

I repeat, the only TTs he has won are at Slovenian national level. Hardly the highest qualification.

Equally, if he is a TT specialist, I'm sure you'll be able to tell us where he placed in the Worlds TT championship last year ;)
 
He's a good enough TTer that you don't expect him to limit his losses to a Dumoulin/Froome/Roglic but not fall apart like a Landa/Lopez.

Someone who isn't going to win WT TTs but can still be around the top 10. A good enough record that people were speculating that maybe he can take time on Roglic before today.

Just not good enough for anybody to expect him to do this.
 
Of course it's not normal. Why would you think that? But at the same time we shouldn't over exaggerate. Pogacar is not some nobody who couldn't time trial before. And his performance has to be put in the context that the two pre-race favourites - Dumoulin and Roglic - absolutely tanked on the climb. Pogacar could have won the race overall, climbing slower than Van Aert.

Don't get me wrong, it was a ridiculous performance. But I think that it looks even more extreme because certain other riders failed hard.
That also says something about Van Aert. ;)
 
I am curious about what would be suspicious in DFA's world. Going 10W/kg over PDBF may be enough for him to raise some eyebrows, who knows.
Of course I think this performance is very suspicious; as I've said several times. But I don't really see why we need to try to exaggerate it, by making claims that he has no TTing pedigree; when he's clearly shown excellent potential and performances in that area. Or by comparing him to a clearly below par Roglic and Dumoulin.
 
TT results in the last two years:

5th, 18th, 1st, 11th, 1st, 1st

I think you have pretty high standards for what a specialist is if a 21 year old with those results doesn't count.
Specialists are guys like Grabsch, Panzerwagen and Dennis who base pretty much their entire career on their ability to pound huge watts for an hour-ish while being as aero as possible. Pogacar is a stage race/climbing specialist with great TT ability. Pogacar is not a TT specialist, and in a clean field an actual TT specialist should be beating him every time, especially if the stage is flat.
 

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