Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[hrotha]

What are the benefits of climbing in the big ring? Why did he choose to do this??

The main benefit is being able to brag later about having ridden up the climb in the big ring.

 

[Froome]

How long before the French turn on him? They do not like seeing their race get dominated.

I already heard some "boooooo" on yesterday's stage.

 

[SpeedWay]

Unlike the Lance or Froome thread.
No one has turned up to vigorously defend Pog .

Where are the Pog Mob?

When the choirboys of hate show up, the Pog mob will show up just as they did for LA and Froomey. Of course, not to defend his honor in an entertainment based genre, but that at a deeper level of humanity everyone just hates self-righteous judgemental pr$cks.

 

[JosefK]

Okay, so Froome currently has 1,374 pages in the Clinic. I think the real burning question is . . . how long will it take for Pogi to eclipse this individual record? Froome has attained this count in about 9 years. Over or under, or never, for Pogi?

 

[Koronin]

Okay, so Froome currently has 1,374 pages in the Clinic. I think the real burning question is . . . how long will it take for Pogi to eclipse this individual record? Froome has attained this count in about 9 years. Over or under, or never, for Pogi?

As others have said, it will depend on how many people defend him. Valverde has a thread around here somewhere and a good number of posts have more to do with Operation Puerto (hence the late star of a single thread specifically for that scandal) than with him. The page count on his is fairly low because even his fans don't really defend him. So as for how long does this thread get, well that depends on what he does, how he does it going forward and how many people choose to defend him.

 

[Zen Master]

How long before the French turn on him? They do not like seeing their race get dominated.

Pogacar actually gave a completely new meaning to the word “dominated”. I couldn’t remember any other Grand Tour in which the time gap between the first and second in the general classification after the first week was more than five minutes (Ben O’Connor excluded), and we shouldn’t forget that he lost 26 seconds to all the other contenders after the crash in the final kilometers of stage 3. At the same time the time gap between Uran (3rd place) and Lutsenko (8th place) is just 54 seconds .

 

[sir fly]

The situation in the standings partially is the result of (unfortunate) circumstances so far and partially reflects the quality of the field.
The time trial and the Alps, though... some reliable data would be welcome.
... to establish the range.

 

[topt]

Same old Same old. Pogacar armstronging

please tell me, what was he supposed to say that you would be Ok with the answer ?

 

[topt]

Unlike the Lance or Froome thread.
No one has turned up to vigorously defend Pog .

Where are the Pog Mob?

I am guessing Slovenia is much smaller than US or UK so this thread will be overrun by "everybody knows"

 

[IndianCyclist]

please tell me, what was he supposed to say that you would be Ok with the answer ?

Like he would release his power data and medical data from antidoping and internal tests which can be analyzed by independent experts that proves he is clean and a 1 in 100 billion individual.
And/Or carry out additional tests with independent credible agencies which would then be made available for experts

 

[topt]

lost 28 seconds to him in a short TT

you forgot to mention the wind changed on that TT, Pog lost all his time on the downhill

 

[ChewbaccaDefense]

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

...I hear Don Catlin is up for hire...

 

[Ripper]

Rasmussen was fired by Rabobank during the 2007 Tour because the heat got too much. Now I'm not expecting anything like that (although...) the fact Pogacar is so young & so dominant means he can't go on for years & years massacring everyone & just smile. If he really was clean & this good, he'd be absolutely self-aware of "how" his performances look. But we just get the same handwaving as Armstrong, i.e. "I've never failed a test, so all is good".



I think anyone pointing the finger at Slovenia in particular is being extremely disingenuous & ignoring the real elephant in the room, i.e. the United Arab Emirates, their money, influence & the team UAE once was: Lampre. That and Giannetti himself being a creep (& all the skeletons in his closet which make him equal to Bruyneel in moral terms, or maybe worse).

It's weird to me how anyone could pretend Slovenia is an issue in a Tour rendered ridicule by Bahrain & UAE (with old man Lefevere at DQS also throwing caution to the wind for whatever demented reason he has).

Follow the $$

UAE
Bahrain

 

[Ripper]

Are there any examples of UAE actually exerting that power and influence they allegedly have or are we just extrapolating?

There are examples of the UCI cozying up countries or organizations that provide them with 'lucrative' potential. I think Cyclingtips has done a little bit of sleuthing on aspects of this, Turkmenistan, etc. Not a direct link, but certainly examples of potential corruption

 

[Ripper]

actually he got caught out big time at Pais Vasco and was definitely not as good as Roglic was there

Indeed he is not TdF level of imperious in every race is he?

 

[Rackham]

you forgot to mention the wind changed on that TT, Pog lost all his time on the downhill

Not true, Roglic put nearly 10 seconds into him on the small climb at the finish. Pogacar was also beaten by Brandon McNulty who only started 45 minutes before him & raced in similar conditions.

Indeed he is not TdF level of imperious in every race is he?

Kind of reminds me of someone else, right? i.e. no doubt his base level is there & he's quite capable of holding his own elsewhere during the season on whatever program they have, but they bring the heavy artillery to the Tour, no doubt.

In Basque Country he never once gave the impression he could drop Roglic or outclimb him, whereas his performance on Saturday? It's a shame Roglic crashed out because we lost a marker there but based on the Planche des Belled Filles & Peyresourde, I think we clearly witnessed one of the WTF performances which even Roglic cannot respond to.

 

[Rackham]

Definitely not as good? He had very little help in his chase while Gaudu and Carthy were at least partly helping Roglic. And he only finished 35 seconds down after chasing for 50 km. I think that was an absolute monster performance.

This isn't what happened.

Pogacar got help from Yates & some others in his large group whereas Roglic rode a solo TT for 20km before Gaudu started relaying him (& Carthy to a minimal degree). And on the Krabelin climb 40km from the finish, Pogacar came within 14 seconds of the Roglic group before Roglic put the hammer down & pulled a gap.

The consensus at the time was they were very evenly matched in terms of performance on that stage, with similar power output & climbing abilities.

 

[Pirazziattacks]

He might have the prep worked out meticulously but Giannetti needs to read up on PR. Today's press conference was Lance all over again and only looks worse.

If Pogacar keeps up this year-round form they'll have a lot of PR work to do. There's nothing like the inspirational superhuman cancer survivor story here.

 

[spalco]

Tadej Pogacar: Anti-doping controls at Tour de France are 'enough' to prove doubters wrong

Slovenian 'not driven by history' ahead of Mont Ventoux stage

www.cyclingnews.com

Haha, so he's literally using the Armstrong playbook now? lol

 

[ice&fire]

I already heard some "boooooo" on yesterday's stage.

That means they weren't properly dressed for the event

 

[bNator]

One other question - how are you guys rationalising the fact that UAE chose a guy from a very small country (and consequentially a very small market) as their programme headliner? Here we are talking about the most advanced doping programme and surely it would make much more sense for them to get a guy with bigger market potential. I can understand he has to be young so they can hack the bio passport which means established cyclists are not appropriate candidates. But it would make much more sense to go with youngh Italian, Spanish, French or Brit than young Slovenian...

 

[Netserk]

One other question - how are you guys rationalising the fact that UAE chose a guy from a very small country (and consequentially a very small market) as their programme headliner? Here we are talking about the most advanced doping programme and surely it would make much more sense for them to get a guy with bigger market potential. I can understand he has to be young so they can hack the bio passport which means established cyclists are not appropriate candidates. But it would make much more sense to go with youngh Italian, Spanish, French or Brit than young Slovenian...

No one thinks he is a chemical golem, whose powers solely rely on doping. He is likely both a physical freak and on the best currently possible doping program.

 

[SafeBet]

This isn't what happened.

Pogacar got help from Yates & some others in his large group whereas Roglic rode a solo TT for 20km before Gaudu started relaying him (& Carthy to a minimal degree). And on the Krabelin climb 40km from the finish, Pogacar came within 14 seconds of the Roglic group before Roglic put the hammer down & pulled a gap.

The consensus at the time was they were very evenly matched in terms of performance on that stage, with similar power output & climbing abilities.

I was replying to a post that stated Pogacar was "definitely not as good as Roglic".
You're saying they had similar power otuputs & climbing abilities.

I take it you agree with me. They both had monster performances that day.

 

[Mr. 64%]

No one thinks he is a chemical golem, whose powers solely rely on doping. He is likely both a physical freak and on the best currently possible doping program.

It seems to be the case for Pogacar and many of his young peers in the pro peloton, that their performance picks up quite a bit as they enter the pro ranks.

Over the last days, i've been entertaining the idea that maybe, some of these youngsters are getting their bio-pass values registered while on the juice... It would go a good bit of way to explain why we've seen such a rise in the level of the youngsters of today.

Does anyone know if this is even possible?

 

[Notarobot]

Over the last days, i've been entertaining the idea that maybe, some of these youngsters are getting their bio-pass values registered while on the juice... It would go a good bit of way to explain why we've seen such a rise in the level of the youngsters of today.

I think this could be the case. Juice'em up before their bio-pass comes in to play. Then this also makes sense:

One other question - how are you guys rationalising the fact that UAE chose a guy from a very small country (and consequentially a very small market) as their programme headliner? Here we are talking about the most advanced doping programme and surely it would make much more sense for them to get a guy with bigger market potential. I can understand he has to be young so they can hack the bio passport which means established cyclists are not appropriate candidates. But it would make much more sense to go with youngh Italian, Spanish, French or Brit than young Slovenian...

Teamleader of the Jumbo Visma team stated in an interview yesterday that he believes there is no way Roglic could follow Pogacar in that mountain stage. He literally said "he would hang on a little longer than Carapaz did". He also said that they knew on beforehand that Roglic could not beat Pogacar this year in a one on one fight, but that they had to isolate him in the mountains and that that's why Vingegaard was selected. He proved himself to be able to follow Pogacar for a long time on a mountain stage.

These very subtle remarks, like the ones from GvA and TdG and now this, if you read between the lines they say 'we don't believe what we see'. The faces of TD and WvA last year after the TT and the expression of Küng this year...they don't buy it. I really think it was one of the reasons Tom Dumoulin quit cycling for a while. He's a very intelligent guy who stands for a clean sport. I don't think he can cope with what he's seeing. I would not be surprised if he stops cycling again within the next few months.