Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[YellowSocks]

Else this is little more than rival fan based annoyance at their doper getting beaten.

You're not ready to give up on this idea, are you? Which rival doped rider are people here fans of? Personally, I don't know.

 

[AlpRaid]

UAE “physio” staff being poached by Football teams.

I guess they “want what she is having”.

lol. Another similarity with the arrival of epo and its providers in the early 90s.

 

[Netserk]

You're not ready to give up on this idea, are you? Which rival doped rider are people here fans of? Personally, I don't know.

It sounds more like a confession than accusation.

 

[Unchained]

UAE “physio” staff being poached by Football teams.

I guess they “want what she is having”.

lol. Another similarity with the arrival of epo and its providers in the early 90s.

This is made even more funny because of how traditionally fringe and underfunded bike racing is.. So for fitness professional to come from cycling and go to another sport with high endurance component.
So football is looking outside itself for marginal gains, fitness, nutrition, ect.
Where the real problems are is that cycling is not attracting people from outside. If bike racing wants real return on investment, they need to poach marketing executives from football of all kinds. UAE is an absolute best case scenario. Pogacar being described as possibly the best rider in bike racing history..
UCI and it's inner circle making Pogacar harder to see than Bigfoot.
Isaac Del Toro getting as much media attention as any rider in recent history and UCI selling nothing..
Del Toro finding himself attractive to hundreds of millions of fans, US with 10s of millions of Mexican heritage and tens of millions more Spanish speakers. Mexico is @135 million.. Colombia, Argentina, both large countries with built in fan base and UCI possibly working with teams on super secret plans to promote the sport.

And if cycling were to go poaching.. NFL would be the place to start, American football being marketing in Europe, in Mexico, NFL explosion of availability, with specialized pay networks games on Amazon, YouTube, Netflix, cable like ESPN, NFL selling games to sponsors on Sunday, Monday, Thursdays. The league selling directly to European audience, selling specifically to women.
Pulling out stops, doing anything and everything to expand the marketing base..meanwhile UCI can't figure out which teams will participate next year and having multiple layer mess with countries hosting races, people afraid of cycling product.
Places like Canary Islands saying association with cycling is just too risky currently. And all this time Pogacar sending signals that he has an exit plan, sending additional signals about bucket list races he wants to try before his career ends.
UCI better do some emergency poaching for promoting the sport, home grown talent in cycling is obviously clueless..
cycling needs to go other sports , sports that are making billions and ask about doping control programs that have consumer confidence and allow other sports to be profitable. Recently reported that Visma lost money, Lotto Intermerchie is a mess, NSN and Israel Premier Tech fusion is completely f%&ked up..
Franchises are in a constant state of funding flux frailty and nobody knows if they have money and how much.
Bike racing could really do itself a favor by getting some new blood, new ways of thinking from football.. Football knows how to grow, knows promotion and profit. It's really, really heartbreaking to see consumer confidence in the toilet for decades, UCI can't figure out a way to confirm to the public that there are sound testing practices and policies in place. Public doesn't have confidence in the integrity of the sport or riders.
Possibly the greatest rider in history and it's all overshadowed by mismanagement and lack of credibility top down.
Sports fans worldwide watch other professional sports, none are managed like pro cycling, none as chronically plundered in scandal like bike racing. The chance to promote Tadej Pogacar appears to be on the downside of his career. Been doing phenomenal since 2018, UCI still getting drug testing results back from same time period.
Others like handball, hockey, cricket, football, basketball, F1,baseball, rugby all doing things differently.. And cycling never thinks to look outward? Why are we failing? Why are they ( take your pick) successful?
In the US we have a few phenomenal stories, one is a female basketball player that appears to single handedly putting women's basketball in the public eye. And as if her storyline couldn't get more push, she shot a 61 golf score in a pro am event. That score got interest because it rivals scores from current female pro golfers. And women's professional soccer also has a market, a sport that really didn't exist @20 years ago, now has a fan base and some revenue stream. Meanwhile cycling can't market stars, can't get steady revenue stream and has a multiple layer of relegation.. Teams either under perform or just collapse under financial pressures that have multiple teams holding on by dental floss financially.
Pogacar is awesome but unknown, bike racing is exciting, easy to understand and watch, it's just so, so mismanaged that it's every move is counter productive. Taking years to catch cheats hurts the sport overall, really really hurts guys like Tadej because UCI has created a normal that waiting for years to get test results is an accepted behavior, an accepted way of doing business. If fans, sponsors, races( countries) can't trust what they are watching, promoting is clean.. Who's fault is that? Can't be Pogacar's responsibility.

 

[Cookster15]

I don't get why you're searching for a single "Gianetti's Ferrari"

Any number would suffice as Mr Gianetti most certainly isn’t an expert in blood manipulation.

This thread was started in 2020 right after Pogi snatched the 2020 TdF from Roglic and Visma at the 2020 TdF. Gianetti's dirty background as a rider in the 90s and as a manager at the 2008 TdF is insufficient to explain what we are seeing.

I feel many who come here underestimate the medical expertise required to deliver huge performance gains (ie, bigger than rival teams manage with similar "techniques") and yet avoid detection under the biological passport.

I’m not exonerating Pogacar, just seeking feasible explanations how his performances are possible without getting caught.

 

[BubbaChuck]

You can just look pog back than or now.And than look remco or seixas.its hilarius he won tour with that body,lmao.crazy talent,even better than his results.

 

[aphronesis]

Any number would suffice as Mr Gianetti most certainly isn’t an expert in blood manipulation.

This thread was started in 2020 right after Pogi snatched the 2020 TdF from Roglic and Visma at the 2020 TdF. Gianetti's dirty background as a rider in the 90s and as a manager at the 2008 TdF is insufficient to explain what we are seeing.

I feel many who come here underestimate the medical expertise required to deliver huge performance gains (ie, bigger than rival teams manage with similar "techniques") and yet avoid detection under the biological passport.

I’m not exonerating Pogacar, just seeking feasible explanations how his performances are possible without getting caught.

Any number of accounts of Postal/Discovery and Sky (arguably higher profile and more systemic of recent teams, but Astana, etc) suggest that the conditions to enable doping are deeply embedded or saturated across the personnel structure, with, obviously some arm’s reach at the administrative level. Presumably most of the day to day people aren’t broadcasting their function.

This Substack series, by way of example, that I can’t access and quote here

Skyfall #1: 'Living a lie' - exposing the dark underbelly of British cycling's golden age

In the summer of 2012, Team Sky reiterated that they were the cleanest cycling team in the world, with no employees who had any doping history. That was far from true.

sportingintelligence832.substack.com

How the UAE deal with some of that may be less transparent and less concerned with minor PR hiccups, maybe more fluid also.

I think there may also be an over valuation of medical qualification. People (maybe not Gianetti) can learn and assimilate these things in their discrete contexts such as cycling and testing. Probably not without professional (medical/scientific) input and some arms race aspects. And there’s the industrial scale of testing to be thought around.

Outside the team context, Bruyneel is making noise recently about how, again, only lower profile people get hit. For the symbolic reasons, but also, he suggests for how protracted and expensive the fight would be. However crap or banal his race analyses, he might be closer on this one.

Not that it’s necessarily his insight anyway as this predates it by a couple of years

“Other cyclists such as Juanjo Cobo and Denis Menchov were sanctioned after retiring from competition. The Spaniard lost his 2011 Vuelta a España title eight years later after a long negotiation with the UCI and, importantly, with the rider not having sufficient financial resources to fight the legal battle all the way to the end.”

 

[Bronstein]

Any number would suffice as Mr Gianetti most certainly isn’t an expert in blood manipulation.

This thread was started in 2020 right after Pogi snatched the 2020 TdF from Roglic and Visma at the 2020 TdF. Gianetti's dirty background as a rider in the 90s and as a manager at the 2008 TdF is insufficient to explain what we are seeing.

I feel many who come here underestimate the medical expertise required to deliver huge performance gains (ie, bigger than rival teams manage with similar "techniques") and yet avoid detection under the biological passport.

I’m not exonerating Pogacar, just seeking feasible explanations how his performances are possible without getting caught.

Froome, Horner, Nibali, Wiggins, Vingegaard, etc - none of them have been caught by the passport. There are many other names you could add to that list. Even Contador wasn't caught by the passport. Pogacar is not remarkable or unusual.

 

[aphronesis]

Picking off top riders may not invite fans or sponsors.

And this may relate to @Unchained’s post in that cycling may not have the force to find itself outside of its origins in distinct national, ethnic, and latterly commercial forms to translate on that volume. Duration isn’t that popular lately.

 

[E_F_]

Well, well, well according to an "unreliable" sources 2026 will be the year of Pogacar's fall... Wrong thread technically (maybe) because supposedly his girlfriend is the reason, but I'm not posting in the main thread..!

edit: UncleCycling:

I've already read it. All nonsense, if Pogacar drops his performance it's because of what we all know is happening behind the scenes.I've been saying publicly for days that Soler is being watched and that San Millán is not at his best, that Zelenkova is being kept an eye on...That's it.

 

[Red Rick]

It sounds more like a confession than accusation.

Classic "both sides are the same" fallacy.

 

[ColonelKidneyBeans]

Any number would suffice as Mr Gianetti most certainly isn’t an expert in blood manipulation.

This thread was started in 2020 right after Pogi snatched the 2020 TdF from Roglic and Visma at the 2020 TdF. Gianetti's dirty background as a rider in the 90s and as a manager at the 2008 TdF is insufficient to explain what we are seeing.

I feel many who come here underestimate the medical expertise required to deliver huge performance gains (ie, bigger than rival teams manage with similar "techniques") and yet avoid detection under the biological passport.

I’m not exonerating Pogacar, just seeking feasible explanations how his performances are possible without getting caught.

We more or less know what you can get away with, which is:

- Low dose Testosterone

-Thyroid hormones

-Low dose EPO

-Low volume transfusion

-OOC Corticoid

-AICAR in moderate dose

-B2 agonists

-HGH and IGF-1

-Insulin


There are things that are more speculative, like synthetic hemoglobin (Erythromer for instance), siRNA (There's ongoing work on PDH2 targeting siRNA, but that's just scratching the surface), designer SARM/EPO,...

Most of the basic stuff you could get from a friendly pharmacist willing to make a few bucks, heck you could even get it legally, just go to your local "functional medicine" quack doctor and ask him for a prescription. Avoiding a positive would not be too difficult.

It suddenly becomes more complicated when you get to the higher end, want legit mecasermine, AICAR? You better have connections and deep pockets. Novel EPO? Erythromer? siRNA? Even worse. Organize a blood doping regimen? Now that's a logistical feat if you want it done right.

In summary, you need money, connections, a lack of ethics, logistics, legal support (or better yet a friendly governement)... the more the better.

Now let's look at Gianetti/UAE, you have someone who has proven that he knows the has connections, has no moral qualms about doping

In short they have a one of a kind blend of money, connections, logistical and legal support, just what you need to run a doping operation.

 

[Cookster15]

We more or less know what you can get away with, which is:

- Low dose Testosterone

-Thyroid hormones

-Low dose EPO

-Low volume transfusion

-OOC Corticoid

-AICAR in moderate dose

-B2 agonists

-HGH and IGF-1

-Insulin


There are things that are more speculative, like synthetic hemoglobin (Erythromer for instance), siRNA (There's ongoing work on PDH2 targeting siRNA, but that's just scratching the surface), designer SARM/EPO,...

Most of the basic stuff you could get from a friendly pharmacist willing to make a few bucks, heck you could even get it legally, just go to your local "functional medicine" quack doctor and ask him for a prescription. Avoiding a positive would not be too difficult.

It suddenly becomes more complicated when you get to the higher end, want legit mecasermine, AICAR? You better have connections and deep pockets. Novel EPO? Erythromer? siRNA? Even worse. Organize a blood doping regimen? Now that's a logistical feat if you want it done right.

In summary, you need money, connections, a lack of ethics, logistics, legal support (or better yet a friendly governement)... the more the better.

Now let's look at Gianetti/UAE, you have someone who has proven that he knows the has connections, has no moral qualms about doping

In short they have a one of a kind blend of money, connections, logistical and legal support, just what you need to run a doping operation.

Thanks for this. What your post reminds is that this is a complicated subject.

Of your 'what you can get away with' list, I think all the teams and top riders would be trying that. It then comes back to your latter points.

I don't know enough about how all these substances work but some of them should still trigger in the passport e.g. synthetic hemoglobin / Erythromer will still cause elevated HCT / HGB. But I don't think the passport is policed as well as it can in theory. That has also been mentioned before in The Clinic.

And I still wonder how Gianetti stumbled upon a super responder when he was only 19 years old? Just lucky?

Sportswashing might be a valid motivator for UAE but we need to be careful not to introduce political discussions here. But UAE are financially capable of playing in Formula 1 rather than a 2nd string Euro centric global sport like cycling. Plus, other teams have potentially big pockets too - particularly Red Bull whose marketing budget is several billion Euro per annum.

 

[aphronesis]

How is UAE having a full tier portfolio distinct from sportwashing other than that it’s inadequate as a descriptor to the reality of where political or politicized capital moves?

Bio passport control offseason is minimal and limited : logistically and geographically (politically also e.g. Spain).

And then

“”And I still wonder how Gianetti stumbled upon a super responder when he was only 19 years old? Just lucky?”

Your turn for plausible evidence

 

[Cookster15]

How is UAE having a full tier portfolio distinct from sportwashing other than that it’s inadequate to the reality of where political or politicized capital moves?

Bio passport control offseason is minimal and limited : logistically and geographically (politically also e.g. Spain).

And then

“”And I still wonder how Gianetti stumbled upon a super responder when he was only 19 years old? Just lucky?”

Your turn for plausible evidence

Red Bull have a much bigger potential marketing budget than UAE.

Lack of effective bio passport control off season applies to all teams and riders - not only UAE and Pogacar.

On Gianetti's luck in stumbling upon a super responder, I don't need to provide evidence - Pogi's detractors do. That is why I post my opinion here. I am not a fan of groupthink.

I am just asking questions how he gets away with it? Remember Pogacar is being compared with Merckyx in the modern era. There are 28 other riders on that team that I counted on their website.

Pogi was only 19 when he won the 2018 Tour de l'Avenir. I believe he was already under Gianetti's attention at that time even if not yet contracted to UAE. Of course there had to be a large element of luck finding a possible new Merckyx when he was just 19 and before had won even Tour de l'Avenir.

 

[ColonelKidneyBeans]

Thanks for this. What your post reminds is that this is a complicated subject.

Of your 'what you can get away with' list, I think all the teams and top riders would be trying that. It then comes back to your latter points.

I don't know enough about how all these substances work but some of them should still trigger in the passport e.g. synthetic hemoglobin / Erythromer will still cause elevated HCT / HGB. But I don't think the passport is policed as well as it can in theory. That has also been mentioned before in The Clinic.

And I still wonder how Gianetti stumbled upon a super responder when he was only 19 years old? Just lucky?

Sportswashing might be a valid motivator for UAE but we need to be careful not to introduce political discussions here. But UAE are financially capable of playing in Formula 1 rather than a 2nd string Euro centric global sport like cycling. Plus, other teams have potentially big pockets too - particularly Red Bull whose marketing budget is several billion Euro per annum.

The passport seems a bit dead since the Kreuziger case. Synthetic hemoglobin can have a short half life (as short as one hour), depending of the composition of the particles, so if timed well they could give a nice boost on a given day without triggering the passport.

 

[Extinction]

This is made even more funny because of how traditionally fringe and underfunded bike racing is.. So for fitness professional to come from cycling and go to another sport with high endurance component.
So football is looking outside itself for marginal gains, fitness, nutrition, ect.
Where the real problems are is that cycling is not attracting people from outside. If bike racing wants real return on investment, they need to poach marketing executives from football of all kinds. UAE is an absolute best case scenario. Pogacar being described as possibly the best rider in bike racing history..
UCI and it's inner circle making Pogacar harder to see than Bigfoot.
Isaac Del Toro getting as much media attention as any rider in recent history and UCI selling nothing..
Del Toro finding himself attractive to hundreds of millions of fans, US with 10s of millions of Mexican heritage and tens of millions more Spanish speakers. Mexico is @135 million.. Colombia, Argentina, both large countries with built in fan base and UCI possibly working with teams on super secret plans to promote the sport.

And if cycling were to go poaching.. NFL would be the place to start, American football being marketing in Europe, in Mexico, NFL explosion of availability, with specialized pay networks games on Amazon, YouTube, Netflix, cable like ESPN, NFL selling games to sponsors on Sunday, Monday, Thursdays. The league selling directly to European audience, selling specifically to women.
Pulling out stops, doing anything and everything to expand the marketing base..meanwhile UCI can't figure out which teams will participate next year and having multiple layer mess with countries hosting races, people afraid of cycling product.
Places like Canary Islands saying association with cycling is just too risky currently. And all this time Pogacar sending signals that he has an exit plan, sending additional signals about bucket list races he wants to try before his career ends.
UCI better do some emergency poaching for promoting the sport, home grown talent in cycling is obviously clueless..
cycling needs to go other sports , sports that are making billions and ask about doping control programs that have consumer confidence and allow other sports to be profitable. Recently reported that Visma lost money, Lotto Intermerchie is a mess, NSN and Israel Premier Tech fusion is completely f%&ked up..
Franchises are in a constant state of funding flux frailty and nobody knows if they have money and how much.
Bike racing could really do itself a favor by getting some new blood, new ways of thinking from football.. Football knows how to grow, knows promotion and profit. It's really, really heartbreaking to see consumer confidence in the toilet for decades, UCI can't figure out a way to confirm to the public that there are sound testing practices and policies in place. Public doesn't have confidence in the integrity of the sport or riders.
Possibly the greatest rider in history and it's all overshadowed by mismanagement and lack of credibility top down.
Sports fans worldwide watch other professional sports, none are managed like pro cycling, none as chronically plundered in scandal like bike racing. The chance to promote Tadej Pogacar appears to be on the downside of his career. Been doing phenomenal since 2018, UCI still getting drug testing results back from same time period.
Others like handball, hockey, cricket, football, basketball, F1,baseball, rugby all doing things differently.. And cycling never thinks to look outward? Why are we failing? Why are they ( take your pick) successful?
In the US we have a few phenomenal stories, one is a female basketball player that appears to single handedly putting women's basketball in the public eye. And as if her storyline couldn't get more push, she shot a 61 golf score in a pro am event. That score got interest because it rivals scores from current female pro golfers. And women's professional soccer also has a market, a sport that really didn't exist @20 years ago, now has a fan base and some revenue stream. Meanwhile cycling can't market stars, can't get steady revenue stream and has a multiple layer of relegation.. Teams either under perform or just collapse under financial pressures that have multiple teams holding on by dental floss financially.
Pogacar is awesome but unknown, bike racing is exciting, easy to understand and watch, it's just so, so mismanaged that it's every move is counter productive. Taking years to catch cheats hurts the sport overall, really really hurts guys like Tadej because UCI has created a normal that waiting for years to get test results is an accepted behavior, an accepted way of doing business. If fans, sponsors, races( countries) can't trust what they are watching, promoting is clean.. Who's fault is that? Can't be Pogacar's responsibility.

Cycling and doping are endemic, for which it sells more in the mass media to report it. This is the fault of the Gianettis of the sport, which has been a historical constant (especially since EPO hit the field). As a friend once asked, why would anyone want to do this dreadful sport? By this he meant how much suffering is involved. Only cyclists think it's the pain you gotta love. The general public would rather watch football. So no amount of money in advertising is going to change that. The reality is cycling just isn't sexy to all but those who are tifosi. Others don't find, for example, a mud
-slung Paris-Roubaix in the least aesthetically appealing. So your position in the argument is a non sequitur. Cycling needs to remain sexy for those that follow it, which I don't think the Gianetti-Pogacar relationship fosters. And if it does, this explains the reason why he is too big too be brought down. Expansionism only works if markets desire the product.

 

[aphronesis]

Red Bull have a much bigger potential marketing budget than UAE.

Lack of effective bio passport control off season applies to all teams and riders - not only UAE and Pogacar.

On Gianetti's luck in stumbling upon a super responder, I don't need to provide evidence - Pogi's detractors do. That is why I post my opinion here. I am not a fan of groupthink.

I am just asking questions how he gets away with it? Remember Pogacar is being compared with Merckyx in the modern era. There are 28 other riders on that team that I counted on their website.

Pogi was only 19 when he won the 2018 Tour de l'Avenir. I believe he was already under Gianetti's attention at that time even if not yet contracted to UAE. Of course there had to be a large element of luck finding a possible new Merckyx when he was just 19 and before had won even Tour de l'Avenir.

Marketing budget and discretionary state budget are not strictly the same. RB Bora has a product and specific brand. As various posts upthread have mentioned some states can or will bear more exposure than certain corporate bodies as they’re not tied to a niche market.

Of course the lack of bio passport control is pervasive. Which would only mean that those with better resources could benefit more.

It doesn’t really seem that anyone engaging your points here or now is dismissing them or discussing (let alone defending) Pogacar as much as current doping possibilities. Hardly groupthink. That may be the case in other threads and venues, but it’s not in this instant.

 

[meat puppet]

Already in 2011 ashenden et al managed to epo microdose into an about 10% increase in hb mass without triggering the passport in a published paper. If nothing else, it showed that there is quite a bit of wiggle room.

Another strategy I guess could be to produce bags during the off season with a method like that. Frequently visiting altitude also helps. Then you slam fresh blood before / during a (stage) race and use microdosing to manage the retic/hb ratio etc.

Add to that the legal issues ensuing from the way the passport was set up, and how the loopholes have been utilized in court cases, and here we are. It's not wrong to think of it as a glorified fig leaf, which disciplined and well resourced actors can breach.

After all, racing speeds went quite a bit up after the covid break, as in when the movement for incredible cycling gained momentum. Something changed. Rather quickly. While I don't discount the possibility of something very new, my guess is that athletes learnt to utilize the leeway they have more effectively.

 

[AlpRaid]

Of your 'what you can get away with' list, I think all the teams and top riders would be trying that. It then comes back to your latter points.

but this is demonstrably false. at the onset of epo many, many riders and teams were at bare minimum conflicted and many chose to quit instead of cheating.

however, and I think this is the point of many here, Gianetti has shown over and over and over again that he does not have any of those ethical struggles.

and somehow he is the manager of the most "successful" team and rider.

it is completely fair to have major doubts.