This point is not disputed.
As Ive said in a few posts, he will still never change the way he looks like people are imagining. Like it or not, this is his body shape and it’s the shape of the 2020 Olympic champion. More power to him. 
It’s an experiment for them, the athlete and the company owning the training data, it may work out, it may fail - the point is to be trying new things and being totally fine that there’s a good chance of failure.
Plus for the athlete he’s got nothing left to prove in triathlon.
This is not a post Olympic race announcement either, we knew this in the tri community ages ago.
To be clear that article is quoting his coach Bu, not the athlete himself, Blu.
“According to his coach, the Tour goal will be met in a progressive manner. He would race the Grand Tour in 2026, with a focus primarily on testing. That year would serve as preparation, with the goal of winning ‘some jerseys’ in 2027. Then, just three years later, he would plan to take the yellow jersey and win the overall classification of the Tour de France.”
And that’s obvious quite ambitious given the superheroes currently on the field of play. But 26 seems sensible, 27 possible.
If you want to disagree that’s fine, but Bu doesn’t say things like that repeatedly unless he and Blu are on the same page. That’s fine though
Do you guys really think this team, and the people they were able to talk to before considering this experiment, didn’t consider these extremely basic things?
I honestly don’t think the article makes good points at all and I think you guys are all really underestimating the sophistication of this group of people.
By no means are the posters here alone, the cycling community has thrown a lot of shade on this whole thing without thinking it through and making huge assumptions based on his shape. I’m criticising that, but I’m not attacking any individuals here.
My points don’t seem to be landing though, so I’ll go back to my cheesecake and wine 
Salut! 
I kinda think that there’s some kid born in 2000 that’s gonna win a few tours about the same time Kristian is thinking he’s will be the winner.
I’m sure they considered them. It’s pure speculation whether or not he can put together all the other skills required to be a grand tour winner. I and others speculate that he can’t.
Unclear how that makes them not good points.
I mean, I would have thought that they would have considered how important soft skills are. But if they considered it and they still thought he can win the Tour in 2028, then I’m not sure what to say. Smart people, if they convince themselves of the wrong course of action, can be even harder to dissuade than people who are not smart because they can rationalize their incorrect decisions.
Have you raced bikes before? If so, I imagine you’ve seen the guys with massive engines who lose several spots in crit corners, right? I was one of those guys! Anyway, racing at the pro level, Blummenfeldt will have to learn to corner in a big bunch, plus how to read the race, when he should be at the front, who he should follow, how to work his way back to the team car (because nobody’s going to do it for him unless he is absolutely preternaturally talented), how to work his way back from the team cars, how to descend, how to descend in a bunch, how to react to road obstructions when you’re deep in the bunch … there are countless things I can’t even name because I’m nowhere near that level. He will have to learn all of those things. At age 30, when your brain is less plastic.
It certainly appears so.
I am not familiar with his team. Who are they and what experience do they have with top level cycling?
To think you are fading in your primary sport and can just jump into a grand tour and win like it’s minor leagues kind of makes you question his team. I mean it’s almost comical.
Last year we finally saw the first successful cross over with Michael Woods being the first sub 4 minute miler to win a stage at the tour. He has never cracked the top 30 in GC. Maybe his team should try just to get on a team and finish before pushing articles with the title “future winner of the Tour de France.” 
I don’t disagree. That said he called his shot about the Tokyo games so it appears that’s likely psychologically beneficial for Kristian.
Olav Aleksander Bu is his coach. The guy is said to be brilliant. From a casual glance, I see him mentioned in triathlon publications a lot. I’m not sure if he coaches any cyclists.
This is going to sound harsh. But people in the US may remember Dr. Benjamin Carson. Brilliant neurosurgeon. Got into conservative politics, fell in with Trump, went to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He basically did nothing productive. He should have stuck to medicine.
Why do I mention Ben Carson? No reason, no reason at all.
Mark Allen, arguably the greatest triathlete in history, was a phenomenal runner…during triathlons. Ran around a 2:40 marathon during Ironman events. At one point he announced he was going to run an open marathon and try to qualify for the Olympic trials. Huge buzz ahead of it, talk of sub 2:10 etc. He came no where close and never attempted it again. It’s a niche sport (I know, I’ve done it since the mid 80s). The pro’s are near world class in all three events. But the cycling leg of a triathlon has very little relation to road racing. KB has absolutely no chance of any success (classics, smaller stage races, grand tours). Zero. None. Nada. Every neo pro cyclist (with years of training and racing actual cycling events) who goes to Europe and races on the World Tour circuit says the same thing: they were blown away by the speed of the peloton. Some take several seasons to adjust, even more give up. My guess is KB will DNF every world tour race he attempts and quit before his first season ends. That’s my harsh take
One point about VO2max. Our bodies use oxygen to burn carbohydrates and fats. VO2 consumption is measured in volume of O2 divided by time (and optionally normalized for bodyweight). It can also be expressed in terms of watts.
On average, a bit less than 25% of that power goes to the pedals. Humans vary in their gross efficiency - that is, cycling power divided by total power produced by the body. I forget exactly how much is typical. But in marathoners, it’s been shown that VO2max and running efficiency are inversely correlated. Not said in that article, but in this 1991 paper, the author calculated that with a VO2max of 84, a lactate threshold of 85% of VO2max (very high in absolute terms, likely within the elite athlete range), and exceptional running economy, a 1:58 marathon should be possible. That has not happened yet.
Cycling is not a contest of oxygen consumption. It’s a contest of power delivered to the pedals, often at some critical moment in the race, modified by all the soft skills I mentioned before. Even if we focus just on Blummenfelt’s VO2max, that alone doesn’t even guarantee that he can produce high cycling power in a short effort. His FTP was reported at about 410W? I think that’s within the range that the top riders have but he is quite a bit heavier.
And more recently, Gwen Jorgensen….gold medalist at 2016 Olympics in Tri and then tried to qualify for the Olympic marathon. Never even got a time to make the Olympic Trials, let alone the games.
Honestly we can speculate all we want and be cynical, but until he actually try’s it, we can’t tell for certain.
Skill in cycling is obviously a huge factor, but it’s also heavily fitness skewed. With his Vo2 max, honestly anythings possible.
I have my doubts though tbh. People like Matthew Beers (who has insane bike handling skils) have had unsuccessful attempts at road racing (even with a > 470W FTP). He mentions that teams would rather focus on developing a 20 year old with 10+ years of pack racing experience than someone that almost 30 with no experience in the pack.
I’d like to see Blummenfelt give it a go. To me the big question is how he gets a ride in the World Tour, let alone a GC leader spot. He’d have to bring a crap ton of sponsorship money to a team that needs it.
To me best case scenario for the World Tour would be him cleaning up at the pro conti level for a year or two, doing well at Worlds, and then getting a spot on a WT team - probably as a control the peloton diesel domestique.
Kirsten Faulkner though has broken the mold. She was a runner and then a rower in college. Starting cycling for fun after college. In like 7 years, she has gone from zero to winning the Olympic road racing in dominating fashion leaving the best in the world in the dust. Along the way, she’s won grand tour stages and is current US National Champion.
I think this, like Keegan, is a an even more relevant example. Beers came from a discipline that has more crossover to road than tri and he still struggled with the pack dynamics of the road. Moreover, he was a guy with a huge FTP, but also bigger in size and he struggled.
Also, going back to Blum’s size and losing weight, it is worth noting that most other people in triathlon are nowhere near as big as Blum. So while he may lose weight, his body shape is not just because he swims a lot…that is his natural body shape. He is always going to have a large upper body relative to his competition, which will always be a massive handicap.
The more I think about this “attempt”, the more nonsensical and far-fetched it seems to be.