Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[Cookster15]

10 million Euro? Nah, that can not be correct. AG2R-Decathlon for 2024 had a 31 million Euro budget
https://inrng.com/2025/11/decathlon-ag2r-team-2024-budget/#more-46754
So it's probably nearer 40 million if not more.

I wrote 10 million Euro more. I just checked again and confirmed the below:

• UAE Between €55 and €60 million for 2024 and 2025
• Visma Lease a bike €50 to €55 million
• Red Bull Between €45 and €50 million
• Decathlon AG2R €40 million in 2026 (€28 million in 2025)

I think potentially UAE or even Red Bull (based upon Red Bull's spend across all global sports) could spend more on cycling if they wanted too.

 

[Stablo]

Look at the numbers of Tour 2020 or even Vuelta 2019. Weak competition? Come on. The performance stuff was very good then in other teams too and so were the riders. My point is that Pog likely didn't have some magical advantage over other teams back then (therefore his big talent can't be denied). 2024-2025 could be a different story who knows but that's not the point of this particular exchange (as you basically questioned his natural aerobic efficiency, which is nuts).

You clearly didn't watch the magical coal miner TT effort, that by itself tells he had some serious Gianetti&Matxin special juice already. It was the first "supercharged Ricco"-moment of pog the dog.

Edit. I know he had good results also prior to that, but until then he was still somewhat following a normal path for an upcoming young talent. Then out of the blue he beats TT-specialists on the flat looking so awfull and off course the insane performance on the climb.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

You clearly didn't watch the magical coal miner TT effort, that by itself tells he had some serious Gianetti&Matxin special juice already. It was the first "supercharged Ricco"-moment of pog the dog.

Edit. I know he had good results also prior to that, but until then he was still somewhat following a normal path for an upcoming young talent. Then out of the blue he beats TT-specialists on the flat looking so awfull and off course the insane performance on the climb.

He won that Tour without a team. It doesn't convince me that UAE had advantage over JV, who had a monster team in that Tour. Look at JV's performances in the following years (Vingo & Van Aert & Roglic & Kuss). Note that I never implied Pogacar was clean but that UAE didn't have performance advantage back then. 2024-2025 is probably a different story.

 

[HashRouge]

You clearly didn't watch the magical coal miner TT effort, that by itself tells he had some serious Gianetti&Matxin special juice already. It was the first "supercharged Ricco"-moment of pog the dog.

Edit. I know he had good results also prior to that, but until then he was still somewhat following a normal path for an upcoming young talent. Then out of the blue he beats TT-specialists on the flat looking so awfull and off course the insane performance on the climb.

I feel like this is revisionist history. His TT position looked fine Sure, not as refined as Rog or Dumoulin, but it was fine. He'd won the Slovenian NC TT ahead of Roglic earlier that year, he wasn't some scrub who'd never sat on a TT bike. He beat TT-specialists on the flat on stage 20 of a Grand Tour. We know final week TTs favour the GT specialists who are decent TTers. Was his performance outstanding? Yes. Is it as egregious as you say? No.

 

[Stablo]

We are implying Mauro Gianetti is some kind of mastermind? But Gianetti is no Dr Michele Ferrari.

e.g. Armstrong worked with Dr Ferrari - I emphasize Ferrari is a qualified doctor of medicine. At best Gianetti seems a shrewd politician to avoid the testers or ensure the testers look the other way?

And if I am UAE why would I have confidence in a guy because he rode in the EPO era and because of what happened at the 2008 Tour de France? Hardly a glowing reference. In the 2020 Tour UAE was not the strongest team either - that was Jumbo Visma.

Who does Gianetti employ who actually understands the science involved of boosting his riders but avoiding triggering an adverse finding under the passport? I don’t think anyone who isn’t a trained physician can do this? It runs the risk of a Lazkano situation.

Then its also been suggested here a UAE team doctor is on the UCI doping panel? Who is that? Why aren’t other teams screaming? Not a peep from a journalist? Why are Red Bull tolerating knowing what they invest in cycling?

Then I also don’t get why a business with such resources as UAE would go to such lengths to win the Tour de France or dominate a 2nd tier professional sport like cycling? Emirates play in European football (soccer) which dwarfs cycling in costs, global reach and exposure? What’s the business case for an elaborate deception to win in cycling?

Not much adds up. Many questions, no answers. Maybe Gianetti just got lucky with Pogacar?

Off course they want as much sportwashing and visibility as possible and they get it relatively cheap in cycling. Also Gianetti is not Dr. Ferrari, but he sure has experts in the team. The doctor in UAE with a double role in the UCI panel has been mentioned here several time and as im working don't have time to look it up again.

Imho the trust here some have in a team run by Gianetti&Co and sponsored by UAE of all the countries is astonishing.

Edit. Im behind and noticed someone already mentioned the doctor in question

 

[Stablo]

He won that Tour without a team. It doesn't convince me that UAE had advantage over JV, who had a monster team in that Tour. Look at JV's performances in the following years (Vingo & Van Aert & Roglic & Kuss). Note that I never implied Pogacar was clean but that UAE didn't have performance advantage back then. 2024-2025 is probably a different story.

Not UAE as a team, but that TT and the next year made it pretty clear pog already had something JV didn't. That lead eventually to the supercharged version of Vinge and the absurdness pog has shown the past two seasons.

 

[Stablo]

I feel like this is revisionist history. His TT position looked fine Sure, not as refined as Rog or Dumoulin, but it was fine. He'd won the Slovenian NC TT ahead of Roglic earlier that year, he wasn't some scrub who'd never sat on a TT bike. He beat TT-specialists on the flat on stage 20 of a Grand Tour. We know final week TTs favour the GT specialists who are decent TTers. Was his performance outstanding? Yes. Is it as egregious as you say? No.

Feel free to disagree, but it was the craziest bs we had seen since some of Froomes features. And yeah of course leaving froomies performances pale in power comparison.

 

[TheKidsCallMeBoss]

. The doctor in UAE with a double role in the UCI panel has been mentioned here several time and as im working don't have time to look it up again.

This place always makes me laugh. Do folks here even know what the UCI Medical Commission does? They have nothing to do with anti-doping activities, their job is to ensure the well-being and health of the riders.

The UCI Integrity Commission (formerly the Anti-Doping Commission) is responsible for anti-doping related matters. If you want to see corruption, check out British Cycling doctor Chris Jarvis, who has been sitting on this committee for 18 years and is a close associate of Cookson, the most corrupt UCI president of all time.