Fat shaming.
P.S. And lets not forget, Tratnik had a thing or two to say about weight culture at SOQ. And interestingly they wanted for him to be at 60kg, although that clearly wasn't working for him.
Not everybody is made or capable of being a GT rider. But weighing 60 for Tratnik who is about 1m73 (tiny bit taller than Evenepoel), is hardly extreme. Still smaller than Vingegaard or Bernal, and both weighed 60 or below. But, that's what being a climber/GT rider means. If Tratnik wasn't able to get somewhere close to that, that's fine, but it simply means he was not really going to be a GT rider or climber regardless.
Nice interview with him in HLN after the NC ITT. Things interesting for the TDF:
- "After that tough final weekend in the Dauphiné, I needed a calm extra altitude training. Don’t forget that I had a pretty bad winter and that I need a bit more recuperation and recovery between training sessions than last year.”
- He weighs 1kg less than during the TDF 2024, close to 60kg
- Looking for the right balance between weight and power, apparently he still weighs more than during Vuelta 2022 when he lost too much power
I don't understand that last bit because he completely destroyed the opposition in the ITT in the Vuelta 2022
These numbers keep evolving every time the story is being told. He was 60kg during the Giro in '21, he said so in two video interviews before the start. I can't link or don't remember where he said it, but he most certainly said that. In an interview after the '22 Vuelta with Sammy Neyrinck he said he was lighter than what they had set out during the year, implying his weight should have been somewhere between 61 and 62 back then. This matched with what was said before the '23 Giro where he was purposely heavier; going from memory they said something in the lines of almost 2kg heavier with him being 63kg then. Now supposedly he weighs close to 60 (how close though) and it's still less than during the '22 Vuelta, implying he should have been 60 or below back then. Yet again they attribute his loss of power to weight and never look at injuries. Whenever he was this skinny and underperformed, imho there was always a crash or recovery preceding it. He destroyed everybody including Roglic in the '22 Vuelta on Pico Jano and Les Praeres. He then crashed and the two days after his crash he lost time. Two weeks ago, he crashed on thursday, climbing started on friday (and on sunday he was again closer to Pog and Vinge). During the '21 Giro, he had bad prep/rehab after his Lombardia crash.
Anyway, i'm curious for next month. If nothing else, it proves that the story a forum member who claimed to be a physician had been telling people last year, about how Evenepoel was physically unable to weigh anything below 62-63kg for extended periods, was -as i called out back then - hogwash.
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