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Teams & Riders Tom Dumoulin discussion thread

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Okay great, nice PR, but I wonder if it had anything to do with the (yes, perfectly legal) ketone supplements Jumbo are using (and Sunweb aren't and weren't).

Exogenous ketones can potentially cause serious stomach issues (and lower blood sugar levels, which could have have negatively affected his performance , as well)


Would their sponsors want that kind of publicity (again) , considering the headlines they got when they admitted to using them last year? Dumoulin is one of their star riders, also.



So... why was there a need to adjust his program weeks in advance?
Indeed. No idea what was going on, but this seems fishy.
 
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Okay great, nice PR, but I wonder if it had anything to do with the (yes, perfectly legal) ketone supplements Jumbo are using (and Sunweb aren't and weren't).

Exogenous ketones can potentially cause serious stomach issues (and lower blood sugar levels, which could have have negatively affected his performance , as well)


Would their sponsors want that kind of publicity (again) , considering the headlines they got when they admitted to using them last year? Dumoulin is one of their star riders, also.



Indeed. No idea what was going on, but this seems fishy.

To be honest, that had little to no impact on Jumbo last year. It got lost in the hundreds of media articles in which Jumbo was talked about as THE exemple of a good and performing team within the peloton (justified seen the results, but after a while it gets tiring).
 
The ketones scenario, while funny if true, i can't really see it. Few teams are this organized as TJV, checking everything, eye for detail, nutrition... If Tom's testresults have really been going backwards for 2 months, it would be a huge oversight on their part.

Farfetched, but it sound plausible. At the end of the day it is humans working. They make mistakes.

Tom has a history of stomach issues... he could be sensitive to changes. I also think in the article, on cyclingnews, about his delay of start this season I believe they said "intestinal" problems.

Or he simply just got sick.
 
TD says that he can't win the TdF without an altitude camp. If no one has an altitude camp isn't that even? He does make a good point that he's living at sea level and other riders live higher so I'd be curious of the top 10 favorites where they are (stuck) living now.
 
TD says that he can't win the TdF without an altitude camp. If no one has an altitude camp isn't that even? He does make a good point that he's living at sea level and other riders live higher so I'd be curious of the top 10 favorites where they are (stuck) living now.
I read that as well. But in these times, where people can't go outside, you'd think sleeping in an altitude tent would be a no-brainer. I'm not saying it will replace actual training on altitude, but it would certainly even the odds. People in other countries might live on altitude, but might not be able to train outside. I'm sure everybody can argue that their prep won't be ideal.
 
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Tom Dumoulin: "Feel like the Dumoulin from 2 years ago"

Tom Dumoulin is ready to make the switch from aimless training to racing. "I would like to win the Tour de France someday and I do and leave everything for that."

The down-to-earth Tom Dumoulin did not initially have a good eye when the new cycling calendar was presented. "In March and April I was indeed still skeptical," he says on the website of his team Jumbo-Visma.

"But now the situation is improving day by day. So it looks good that the season will start in August. In concrete terms, this means that we are again fully focused on the races, in my case the Tour de France."

Dumoulin will prepare for the Tour start at the end of August with a few matches in France. "After that I will probably ride the classics and the World Cup, where I also hope to shine."


"I also know that there is no need for that doubt"

Tom Dumoulin is convinced that he can compete with the best lap cyclists in the world, just like a few years ago. "At the training I feel like the Tom Dumoulin from 2 years ago."

"A match is of course something else than a training, so I sometimes doubt that. I am also sorry that I have not yet been able to show myself for my new team. Although I also know that that doubt is not necessary for anything."

And so Dumoulin is convinced that he will soon be able to participate in the prizes in the next Tour, although he will have to win the internal team battle with Roglic and Kruijswijk first. "The Tour is the biggest of the biggest, I would like to win it once. I do and leave everything for that."


https://forum.cyclingnews.com/javascript:void(0);
 
We've seen 3 GTs recently be won by a team with co-leaders (the last 2 Tours, and the Giro last year) and in each case the winner was the guy who didn't start out as number 1. If Jumbo play their cards right and make use of their resources, they can protect both Primoz and Tom until very deep into the race.
I think Bernal was a much bigger favorite than Thomas to win last year. 2018 Tour, I don't think Froome was really a favorite to win the double. It maybe a bit of captain hindsighting, but Thomas suddenly being the next in line seemed more in line with Sky than Froome pulling a double that hadn't happened for 20 years all of a sudden. Also both Thomas and Bernal didn't really benefit tactically, they were just the best dudes in the race when it mattered most.

And for Carapaz, true. He really benefitted tactically. Without Landa it probably becomes a lot harder to win that race, and I think Nibali screwed himself like 3 times that race, as well as potentially being screwed by Gavia cancellation
 
I think Bernal was a much bigger favorite than Thomas to win last year. 2018 Tour, I don't think Froome was really a favorite to win the double. It maybe a bit of captain hindsighting, but Thomas suddenly being the next in line seemed more in line with Sky than Froome pulling a double that hadn't happened for 20 years all of a sudden. Also both Thomas and Bernal didn't really benefit tactically, they were just the best dudes in the race when it mattered most.

And for Carapaz, true. He really benefitted tactically. Without Landa it probably becomes a lot harder to win that race, and I think Nibali screwed himself like 3 times that race, as well as potentially being screwed by Gavia cancellation

Talking about tactics, if Alaphilippe hadn't pulled out all the stops last year Thomas would have been in yellow after the ITT and...Bernal would never have been allowed to attack on the Iseran !
 
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I think Bernal was a much bigger favorite than Thomas to win last year. 2018 Tour, I don't think Froome was really a favorite to win the double. It maybe a bit of captain hindsighting, but Thomas suddenly being the next in line seemed more in line with Sky than Froome pulling a double that hadn't happened for 20 years all of a sudden. Also both Thomas and Bernal didn't really benefit tactically, they were just the best dudes in the race when it mattered most.

And for Carapaz, true. He really benefitted tactically. Without Landa it probably becomes a lot harder to win that race, and I think Nibali screwed himself like 3 times that race, as well as potentially being screwed by Gavia cancellation

Thomas was absolutely the biggest favourite after the TT last year. He had been the strongest of the favourites on La Planche des Belles Filles, and the only reason he couldn't follow Pinot and Alaphilippe on their foray into Saint-Étienne was that he had had a crash just before the climb, so it was actually a near-miracle that he managed to not lose time to anybody else. Then he of course drove the cross-winds and gave everybody but Alaphilippe a lesson in the TT with Bernal losing almost a minute and a half.

But the second he lost ground near the top of the Tourmalet that was the moment where I got the feeling that that Tour edition would be something really special, not knowing who would win from a far way out.
 
Thomas was absolutely the biggest favourite after the TT last year. He had been the strongest of the favourites on La Planche des Belles Filles, and the only reason he couldn't follow Pinot and Alaphilippe on their foray into Saint-Étienne was that he had had a crash just before the climb, so it was actually a near-miracle that he managed to not lose time to anybody else. Then he of course drove the cross-winds and gave everybody but Alaphilippe a lesson in the TT with Bernal losing almost a minute and a half.

But the second he lost ground near the top of the Tourmalet that was the moment where I got the feeling that that Tour edition would be something really special, not knowing who would win from a far way out.
I didn't see the Pinot/Ala stage, so I didn't know he crashed. Sounds like a Thomas thing to do.

I agree he lost that race in the Pyrenees, and if anything I think him not beating Alaphilippe in that time trial was already a bit of a show of weaker form.