Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[Red Rick]

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?

Bio passport started when?

Wouldn't we have seen an influx of insane youngsters sooner if "just dope hard as hell as soon as possible" was the solution. And it also in no way explains older, established riders making leaps in performance either.

 

[Red Rick]

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.

I think he's not even gonna try hard tbh.

I think it's gonna be more like "why the *** do you keep asking bruh"

 

[Mr. 64%]

Bio passport started when?

Wouldn't we have seen an influx of insane youngsters sooner if "just dope hard as hell as soon as possible" was the solution. And it also in no way explains older, established riders making leaps in performance either.

They would obviously still have to stay within the limits of non-detection. And if we take what we know into account about the current situation, there's still room for older riders to "improve" late in their carreer - but apparantly not to the same degree as some of the youngsters around. I don't think one necessarily rules out the other.

Of course, it could be a shot closer to the corner flag than the goal post indeed.

 

[Pinot's goat]

WvA

lol.

 

[Eric Blair]

Sport is about watching and enjoying supernatural performances. We want to see athletes who are on a god-like level doing things we could never do if we spent our entire lives training for it. We don't want to watch versions of ourselves crucifying themselves up a Col, vomiting on the side of the road, face so red they look like they're about to have a heart attack.

But we also want a clean sport, no doping, no fixing. We need to be able to suspend our disbelief when watching these performances, when our instincts tell us this can't be feasible. So we need a story, a yarn, something to silence that voice in the back of our minds.

Team Sky were brilliant at this, announcing upon their arrival 'cleaner than clean', throwing huge money at it, and of course that absolutely brilliant marketing slogan 'marginal gains'. How did Froome manage that performance? Must have been all that money and the marginal gains. But they were very clever not to push it beyond these realms of plausibility, the smoke-screen was effective, and most likely just micro-dosing.

Armstrong was a different animal, he used the sheer power of his character to silence those around him, and cleverly used his recovery from cancer as a tool of deflection. How could a cancer survivor jeopardize his health by doping? It was nonsensical, although, well, you know.

Crucially both had powerful partisan press at home defending them, and a lot of other powerful financial interests too. Pogacar at the moment has little of this and is therefore drawing a lot of suspicion and fire. He doesn't have a convincing enough back story or history, and Slovenia doesn't have much influence in world cycling. He was good at youth level, but wasn't destroying everybody all the time as you would expect the youth prodigy to soon become the greatest rider of all time to be. The only trump card he has is the money and influence of a corrupt and extremely rich Gulf state, and perhaps the 'see no evil' stance the UCI may have at the moment.

For my money, Pogacar is doing something untoward. But whether he is or he isn't, he will need something to help the viewers and fans suspend their disbelief at his performances or they will begin to switch off in their droves. Simply saying 'they're testing me so it's all kosher' is not a strategy that will work. There is of course the possibility that he gives zero shits about what people think.

 

[BlueRoads]

I think Buchmann, when once asked about doping in cycling, said something like "I can understand the doubts. I can say that I, myself, don't dope. There's nothing more to be said about this."

This doesn't sound too great either, but it was good enough for me - not that now I'm sure he'd never dope, but he said what could be said, and because the media always have to worm every full sentence out of him, the last sentence was okay for me, too. Nothing declamatory or lofty, no bs, just a clear answer and an awareness that performances in cycling are under scrutiny.
To be honest, yes, what can you say. The reporters would need to ask more specific questions, which, I think, in this case they weren't allowed to do anyway. But "I get tested" is indeed not the best answer if you have ever heard of the name Armstrong.

 

[spalco]

There is of course the possibility that he gives zero shits about what people think.

I agree with what you wrote for the most part, but I kind of disagree with the idea that all that's required is a sort of plausible deniability. I mean this is still competitive sports and not "professional" wrestling. Do we want a rider - be it Pogacar or anyone else - to sandbag or feign weakness just so we can easier believe? The point would be that everyone tries their best and the strongest wins, no?

Also, I think everyone cares about recognition on some level, even if maybe it's just their family and friends. Nobody wants to be known as the junkie on wheels who only won by pumping himself full of drugs. Someone who truly doesn't give a ***, doesn't become a pro cyclist.

 

[Eric Blair]

Do we want a rider - be it Pogacar or anyone else - to sandbag or feign weakness just so we can easier believe?

That might not be what you or I want, but for lots of people it is enough. This thinking can be seen everywhere in society, look what happens when people step into a voting booth, or if you ask people if society is fair and everyone deserves to be where they are. Many people buy into the fantasy because it's a lot more palatable than the probable reality. Armstrong was great at manipulating this, and Pogacar would just need enough people to buy into the idea that they are the lucky ones alive at the time the greatest cycling phenomenon of all time breaks through. He isn't there yet though.

Also, I think everyone cares about recognition on some level, even if maybe it's just their family and friends. Nobody wants to be known as the junkie on wheels who only won by pumping himself full of drugs. Someone who truly doesn't give a ***, doesn't become a pro cyclist.

I would argue that if pro cyclists really cared about that there wouldn't be any doping at all, but there is and has been. A professional sportsperson lives a different existence to most of us, they are huge risk takers with their own health in the pursuit of glory and probably feel untouchable or invincible, especially with a powerful team behind them. I wouldn't put pro cyclists down as rational decision makers. I guess family are always there no matter what. When Armstrong visits his mother for dinner I doubt she's thinking 'Oh, here comes my son the despicable drug cheat', more likely 'Oh, here comes my son, the fastest man on two wheels, a winner, a champ.'

 

[topt]

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

if I had to guess, when you accelerate (ride on pedals) you dont have to change the front chainring

 

[topt]

Sport is about watching and enjoying supernatural performances. We want to see athletes who are on a god-like level doing things we could never do if we spent our entire lives training for it. We don't want to watch versions of ourselves crucifying themselves up a Col, vomiting on the side of the road, face so red they look like they're about to have a heart attack.

But we also want a clean sport, no doping, no fixing. We need to be able to suspend our disbelief when watching these performances, when our instincts tell us this can't be feasible. So we need a story, a yarn, something to silence that voice in the back of our minds.

Team Sky were brilliant at this, announcing upon their arrival 'cleaner than clean', throwing huge money at it, and of course that absolutely brilliant marketing slogan 'marginal gains'. How did Froome manage that performance? Must have been all that money and the marginal gains. But they were very clever not to push it beyond these realms of plausibility, the smoke-screen was effective, and most likely just micro-dosing.

Armstrong was a different animal, he used the sheer power of his character to silence those around him, and cleverly used his recovery from cancer as a tool of deflection. How could a cancer survivor jeopardize his health by doping? It was nonsensical, although, well, you know.

Crucially both had powerful partisan press at home defending them, and a lot of other powerful financial interests too. Pogacar at the moment has little of this and is therefore drawing a lot of suspicion and fire. He doesn't have a convincing enough back story or history, and Slovenia doesn't have much influence in world cycling. He was good at youth level, but wasn't destroying everybody all the time as you would expect the youth prodigy to soon become the greatest rider of all time to be. The only trump card he has is the money and influence of a corrupt and extremely rich Gulf state, and perhaps the 'see no evil' stance the UCI may have at the moment.

For my money, Pogacar is doing something untoward. But whether he is or he isn't, he will need something to help the viewers and fans suspend their disbelief at his performances or they will begin to switch off in their droves. Simply saying 'they're testing me so it's all kosher' is not a strategy that will work. There is of course the possibility that he gives zero shits about what people think.

Froomes transformation would hardly be a result of microdosing

 

[sir fly]

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...

If it was only about the program, they'd choose a domestic rider.
It's about promoting UAE, not about targeting the third markets.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

I wonder if Pogacar's current dominance will inspire other GC teams to raise the stakes.

He's probably the most talented rider out there right now, but even so. This is beyond taking the piss.

 

[Bolder]

I wonder if Pogacar's current dominance will inspire other GC teams to raise the stakes.

He's probably the most talented rider out there right now, but even so. This is beyond taking the piss.

Tbh I find Bahrain's collective performance this year much less credible than Pogacar's.

 

[BullsFan22]

It’s not like he attacked 80km out. Plus once Carapaz dropped to the chasing group, they slowed down and were racing against each other rather than worrying about yellow. Also, this isn’t exactly the strongest field ever assembled, and there have been crashes that have seriously weakened the likes of Roglič and Thomas.

 

[nayr497]

That might not be what you or I want, but for lots of people it is enough. This thinking can be seen everywhere in society, look what happens when people step into a voting booth, or if you ask people if society is fair and everyone deserves to be where they are. Many people buy into the fantasy because it's a lot more palatable than the probable reality. Armstrong was great at manipulating this, and Pogacar would just need enough people to buy into the idea that they are the lucky ones alive at the time the greatest cycling phenomenon of all time breaks through. He isn't there yet though.



I would argue that if pro cyclists really cared about that there wouldn't be any doping at all, but there is and has been. A professional sportsperson lives a different existence to most of us, they are huge risk takers with their own health in the pursuit of glory and probably feel untouchable or invincible, especially with a powerful team behind them. I wouldn't put pro cyclists down as rational decision makers. I guess family are always there no matter what. When Armstrong visits his mother for dinner I doubt she's thinking 'Oh, here comes my son the despicable drug cheat', more likely 'Oh, here comes my son, the fastest man on two wheels, a winner, a champ.'

Very interesting thoughts on people wanting to believe things that are more palatable. I'm in the U.S. and can't believe people don't question PEDs in football, baseball, hockey, tennis more frequently.

On another note, allowing NCAA athletes to make money...is extremely short-sighted in my opinion. Yeah, nobody should be used as free labor, but I see this as leading to an insane amount of corruption, fraud, cheating. It makes people feel good that the youngsters aren't being taken advantage of, but it opens the doors to massive amounts of cheating and bribes.

Ugh, just make DI football and men's basketball like European soccer already. If you want to play pro, you drop out of regular school and go to a sports academy. It's the only real solution, and will probably NEVER happen.

 

[Pantani_lives]

I don't really mind Pogacar. Apart from Carapaz the rest of the top 10 is so boring that I couldn't care less about them.

 

[Rackham]

It’s not like he attacked 80km out. Plus once Carapaz dropped to the chasing group, they slowed down and were racing against each other rather than worrying about yellow. Also, this isn’t exactly the strongest field ever assembled, and there have been crashes that have seriously weakened the likes of Roglič and Thomas.

He did attack from 80km out, actually (or thereabouts).

Re-watch the stage: Pogacar slipped into a breakaway early in the stage & pulled for a bit in the group all by himself (before they got caught). I know it got lost in the ensuing drama, but Pogacar literally attempted to breakaway from the GC group on the flat on Saturday way, way from the finish (it really was 80km or something close) & for a short while, it looked like he might succeed.

He was crazy strong. In fact the strongest I can remember since I first started watching cycling in the 1990's. It was Pantani/Ullrich/Riis/Lance all in one. He doesn't even look skeletal thin either, i.e. he has some bulk in there which really does remind me of the 1990's hematocrit defying supermen.

 

[Breh]

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

Yes. This is way more enjoyable than whatever Skyneos did and on top of that we don't have to put up with the condescending nonsense about marginal gains and Brailsford's PR crap.
Skyneos was an insult to my intelligence, Pogi boy isn't.

 

[Eric Blair]

Froomes transformation would hardly be a result of microdosing

Hard to say because of Team Sky so successfully creating 'plausible deniability'. He pulled off some out-of-this-world stage wins, but how much did the 'marginal gains'/high-level supportive team-mates/loadsamoney contribute to that? Plus you have to look at the fact that there have been multiple winners from his team, and that coming from a part of the world with less cycling infrastructure and expertise meant he had more space to grow into.

There you go, if you're a Team Sky/Ineos/Froome fan, or simply want to believe in the integrity of the competition, there are all the arguments you need to sway yourself away from the doping angle. Pogacar doesn't really have anything like that, only that he is a kind of mutant with a freakish ability to absorb oxygen. That one might be a hard sell.

 

[ppanther92]

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).

Well, UAE is not particularly good though. And that for years actually. They have just one crazy outlier.

 

[topt]

Hard to say because of Team Sky so successfully creating 'plausible deniability'. He pulled off some out-of-this-world stage wins, but how much did the 'marginal gains'/high-level supportive team-mates/loadsamoney contribute to that? Plus you have to look at the fact that there have been multiple winners from his team, and that coming from a part of the world with less cycling infrastructure and expertise meant he had more space to grow into.

There you go, if you're a Team Sky/Ineos/Froome fan, or simply want to believe in the integrity of the competition, there are all the arguments you need to sway yourself away from the doping angle. Pogacar doesn't really have anything like that, only that he is a kind of mutant with a freakish ability to absorb oxygen. That one might be a hard sell.

Well, for me its a lot easier to swallow Pogacar is a supertalent than we made a race horse from a donkey in a year he is supposed to be released from the team with "marginal gains"

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Tadej Pogacar: I push good watts, that's why I'm first at the Tour de France

Slovenian remains in dominant position ahead of Mont Ventoux

www.cyclingnews.com

Much better PR than last time.

Pog implies that his ascents (of Romme and Colombiere) were not that fast. Reiterates that other GC favs have crashed hard.

"[Pogacar] suggested that the crashes of touted rivals like Primoz Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) had inflated his early cushion."

"I'm dominating this race but if you look at the times on the climbs you can already see why it's such a gap. After the crashes the first few days, the field is just not the level it's supposed to be. I didn't suffer any crashes, so for me, it's really good."


on publishing his power data:

"To open up the files, I would love to. But then the thing is, everybody sees your files and the other teams can use that against you in the race," Pogačar said.


and what do you know - he won't target another stage win:

"I've already won a stage, so I'm pretty happy with that," he said. "Maybe sometimes you can do a mistake by going for the stage, and burn all the matches from the team. So the first goal is just to defend the yellow."

I.e. has been told to knock it down a notch or twenty.

 

[Red Rick]

That's the final step.

Being able to crush everyone, having wins never in doubt, but taking it easy as all *** and making the race a snoozefest anyway.

 

[red_flanders]

Froomes transformation would hardly be a result of microdosing

And was QUITE beyond the realm of plausibility. At least to any rational train of thought as I see it...

 

[hrotha]

"Everybody still left in this race except for me is an embarrassment, man" might be good PR in that, in the eyes of most media, it provides a seemingly plausible explanation for the gaps we're seeing. Perhaps not so great in terms of not making enemies in the peloton, though.