Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

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Its a little infuriating reading the half baked theories on here. One of the highest profile riders in the sport is going to use an easily detectable hidden motor, requiring the knowledge of at least some of the mechanics on his team, very apparent style of riding when using it, and risk of discovery in a crash.

Alternatively, he could be using an almost undetectable doping regimen, known about by only him and his doctor, easily capable of producing the results we have seen as we know from past history.

No doubt hidden motors have been used in the past (cough, Cancellara), but not when everyone and their brother has known about them. Get a grip folks.
No. That's exactly the issue. What Pogacar has been doing since 2024 is so far beyond what even the most doped up riders of the past could achieve. If it is so easy to achieve, then why is he the only rider ever to achieve it?

If not for Pogacar (or even just without his sudden explosion in level in 2024), Vingegaard could very likely have gone down as the greatest Tour rider ever and yet Pogacar is destroying him while seemingly in zone 2.

It doesn't add up. Something else is going.
 
May 19, 2015
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The idea that Cancellara got away with a hidden motor but Pogacar cannot be using it is *** hilarious.

I remember looking at the climbing time on the Muur, and it was slow as ass. Boonen just collapsed on the Muur cause ofcourse he did.
Cancellara was motordoping 100%, Roubaix was way more obvious. In the Ronde it's the bikechanges giving it away. Losing a mechanic mid race in the hectics of the race they said, than suddenly the mechanic is next to the parcours in another village and Cancellara knows this and changes his bike, the one with a so called problem and with a mechanic on foot who has no way to communicate with Fabian. Ask anyone who was in those races and they say Cancellara motordoped.
 
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YellowSocks

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Because I've seen the subject raised several times here, with some people calling for the police to intervene, here is a quick rundown on French legislation. Feel free to add to this if you are more competent than I am.

Drug doping: In France, this is treated as drug trafficking. So there's a possibility of prison for traffickers, which may be anybody providing a product to a rider, and not much for consumers.

Genetic doping: French law was amended in 2023, in anticipation of the Olympic Games, to authorise screening tests for genetic modifications, which obviously raised many ethical questions. I don't know whether these tests are carried out, but they are now authorised.

Technological fraud: in 2017, some members of Parliament tabled a bill, asking for the regulations to be adapted to this new type of fraud. This bill was not adopted, as Parliament considered this type of fraud is already covered by the existing legal framework, and is therefore already subject to penalties.

Now you can call the police!
 
Cancellara was motordoping 100%, Roubaix was way more obvious. In the Ronde it's the bikechanges giving it away. Losing a mechanic mid race in the hectics of the race they said, than suddenly the mechanic is next to the parcours in another village and Cancellara knows this and changes his bike, the one with a so called problem and with a mechanic on foot who has no way to communicate with Fabian. Ask anyone who was in those races and they say Cancellara motordoped.
In fact the most obvious motordoping race in Cancellara's career is in Harelbeke (2011).
 
Jul 16, 2024
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The clinic is off today? Or Pogi forgot the batteries for his motor today? LOL

Obviously sandbagging not much to say. Could of course speculate as to why but the likely reason is that he wanted 100th win to be in Le Tour, also maybe been told to tune it down abit and let others have their day.

Do you believe he would have had a hard time winning this stage if he really wanted to?
 
Okay this is really just my opinion and nothing more, but ever considered that Tadej is simply not that of a nice person? I think he's rather arrogant and continues to show this. Countless examples.

You are absoluright I think, he probably feels the need to continuesly beat everyone with more difference or in bigger ways. And hey he can, because the difference apparantly is so big. I don't think most of us actually realise how big the difference is if he really goes 'full gas'. Tadej always talks about 'full gas'but I actually think he barely ever does so...
I agree with everything you said here. I just made a messy post about brain chemistry that landed outside peoples heads :)
The human brain can become addicted to almost anything and neurotypical people builds up tolerance so they need more and more and more to get the same high. So nothing sticks and nothing makes them happy in the end. Winning is part of that chemistry.

So I don't see Pog as anything but an addict that would've been addicted to something else was he not addicted to winning.
I realized I had to add there that I don't look down on addicts, it's not that they can help it.

I see Pog as a persona. A lot of people buy into a persona and calls it "personality". But I'd say neither Armstrong nor Pog has a personality, there's only a persona. They love their persona.
 
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I just realized one thing; during Armstrong years was this forum full of people discussing the wistle blowers before it was obvious? Like did you people do that kind of detective work? Because that could be a clue; who in UAE would be the Landis? We already have 2 resentful leaders who are in the shadow of Pog. We also have the angry San Milan. It's not like UAE is one happy family.

who says he's angry? Mou? must have missed that.
 
Man, people just need to stop acting like what Vingegaard and Pogacar are doing is similar. One is a highly specialized rider who performs extremely well in one very particular set of circumstances, the other is essentially a hybrid between Armstrong, Cancellara, Gilbert, and Freire. There are levels to this, you know. Credibility is a spectrum and while one might be somewhat hard to believe the other is outright impossible.

It's pretty clear if you just go by the numbers. If we look at race wins - i.e. not including GC results - in relation to race days we get a crystal clear picture of an absolute freak, someone basically at the level of Eddy Merckx, which is unequivocally not a good sign. Pogacar has 70 race wins in 323 race days in his career. That's a win rate of 21 percent. That's just ridiculous, an absolute parody, a circus act taking us all for fools. And that's for his entire career. Last season it ended at 31 percent - 15 race wins in 49 race days - and this season he is now sitting at 36 percent - 20 race wins in 55 race days.

Don't tell me that Vingegaard is at that same level of incredulity. Pogacar's career win percentage is better than Vingegaard's single-best season. Vingegaard is frankly the most believable of the big four because his seasons are tailormade for him to peak in a very specific type of race, while especially Pogacar and Evenepoel are peaking and delivering results in basically every terrain on basically any feasible parcours. That's not comparable.

Just want to revisit the above with some new stats on Pogi's ridiculous and utterly unparalleled domination.

As I've said before, Pogi is not slowing down. He's only getting more and more dominant. Last season ended with Pogi grabbing 22 race day wins - i.e. not including GCs - in 58 race days, a whopping and ridiculous win rate of 38 percent. That is Merckx territory. This season? It's up to 41 percent with 9 race wins in 22 race days. And then we can add the two GCs after the fact.

This takes his career race day win percentage up to 23 percent. 81 race day wins in 345 race days (I've subtracted TTT's this time, which I didn't do last time). For reference, Vingegaard's best season by far saw him grab 11 race day wins in 67 race days, a win percentage of 17 percent. Pogi's career race day win rate is five percentage points better than Vingegaard's single best season.

There's quite simply no comparison, not now, not ever in the modern history of this sport. Last time we saw domination like this was Eddy, and at the moment, Pogi is even on course to beat Merckx' best ever season in terms of race day win percentage. It's just quite simply ridiculous whataboutery and roundabout talk when people bring up Vingegaard in this conversation as if he's anywhere near the same level of incredulity and noncredibility as Pogi.
 
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Jul 15, 2023
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As I’ve posted before, we have all witnessed how Pogacar rides effortlessly across all race types, the apparent lack of stress, the quite frankly *astonishing* lack of suffering which even the most doped riders in history still exhibited. Related, he also exhibits a lack of relative fatigue across huge blocks of single day and stage racing. Third, and increasingly suspicious, is an ability to accelerate away from other world class riders on all angles of slope and surfaces without *any obvious increase in effort* and to be able to sustain the enhanced pace without any sign of having to tune it back. In other words, the guy doesn’t have a red zone. So what is going on? I don’t think a doping programme or genetics enhancement programme, or a combination thereof, no matter how sophisticated, can adequately explain all of what we’re seeing from Pogacar. The laws of physics still have to be obeyed in combination with human endurance, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal limitations. That’s why I think it’s more than a little likely that he’s getting mechanical assistance. It exists as a means of gaining significant advantage, and has been in use even at the top level. It’s also going to be amazingly sophisticated after twenty years of development. Especially in a team that controls its own bike development. To quote the great detective, "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"