To say that nobody knew what they were doing with training in the late 90s is simply not true. Some of the details have changed, but fundamentals are fundamentals and are largely the same. Altitude camps have been a thing for ages. Not just in cycling, but in other endurance sports as well. Sports that by the way have largely not seen the massive performance gains of cycling.
Just like now, Lance and Postal used to brag about all the training optimizations they were doing and all the performance testing. Meanwhile, behind the scenes Ferrari was giving him and many others more red cells. It’s literally the same narrative that teams are using now to deflect suspicion from their otherworldly performances.
I don’t despise Jonas at all, seems like a pleasant enough guy, but I’ve no love for Visma, and I’m always rooting for someone to beat JV. Dunno if it’s the Team Sky vibes that Visma give off, but in the racing entertainment stakes, whereas Pog is absolute gold gust, Jonas delivers sock-drawer-organiser levels of thrills for me.
ㅤ
Now there’s a guy I cannot stand
(NB presenter!, not Cav, obvs)
Agree we should retain a sceptical approach to the sport. And certainly would want journalists to follow up and investigate any rumours of new doping techniques, exactly as EC have done with CO inhalation.
That said I also think it’s very unfair to indulge in speculation based purely on performances. I don’t think you can point a finger at a certain W/kg (even if we had accurate W and kg numbers which we almost never do), let alone a climb time which is hugely affected by weather conditions, road surface, tactics, where in the stage it falls, etc and claim it must be a doped performance.
I’ll continue to hope and believe that the peloton is cleanish, but certainly won’t be shocked (though would be a bit disappointed) if it turns out that it isn’t!
But that is often the leading indicator…you can’t ignore ground-breaking results and say “there is no evidence” when one of the best pieces of evidence is the performance itself. (note - I am drawing a clear distinction here between “evidence” and “proof”.)
Conversely, I would never take a performance itself as “proof” of doping.
I will take things at face value, but will also raise an eyebrow at eyebrow raising performances. Was this weekend’s results worthy of an eyebrow raise? I dunno…
Theres no point in speculating. They are tested often, and if they are dirty, eventually it would come out. Maybe not now, maybe not next year, but eventually. Either a sample will pop with more sophisticated testing methods, or a source would leak it, or something else.
Proper nutrition, hydration and heat management are such huge performance gains that in my mind it’s not too unbelievable.
We don’t have rolling resistance data from tyres in that era (at least I don’t have it), but you could be looking at many many watts per tyre.
There are so many marginal gains, that you can’t just say “DOPING” because they are going faster up these climbs.
I don’t know if they’re clean or not, but I am not going to ruin my own enjoyment of the sport because of what other people did years ago.
The question of team vs individual is commonplace in many team sports. One can take a reductionist view of 1v1 for the superstars and have that perspective. That is a common narrative. But it is a simplification for the sake of story telling. One can take a superficial view, or one can dive deeper.
Do whatever gives you the most enjoyment as a fan.
My perspective, the commentators you cited are storytellers. Their job is to keep viewers interested and also appeal to viewers who likely aren’t very sophisticated. It is a lot easier to talk about Pog vs Jonas and focus on the moment where one attacks the other or drops the other than it is to dive deeply into the tactics and strategy of a stage and an entire tour. TBH, the deeper discussion is only interested to a small number of people anyway.
I’ll leave you with an analogy and a couple questions from other team sports:
Did Bird beat Magic or did the Celtics beat the Lakers?
Did Brady beat Mahomes or did the Pats beat the Chiefs?
IN context of this race, we’ve already seen how important the team has been. Examples: How many minutes would Jonas have lost without his teammate being there to give him a bike? How many minutes would he have lost if he wasn’t towed back to Remco and Pog? I would also posit that UAE is hurting Jonas with their tactics. Can’t prove it, and Jonas is not going to tell us, but they have worked their strategy and tactics pretty much to perfection so far.
Folks in other parts of the world can find other analogies. I apologize for using American Football and Basketball
It doesn’t smell like the 90s-00s era to me. Not at all.
Back then, all those who I was sure were dirty were dirty, and it was infuriating that it took so long for it to all come out, aided and abetted as they were by a bunch of those in charge who were complicit, plus the various other enablers.
And I’m someone who used to hang out in The Clinic etc so not afraid of some total cynicism at times.
But in this current era, I’m with @Hristo for now, and very happy to take these results on face value, and to do so, I feel, with no need for rose-tinted spectacles either.
Why are you telling me about wind tunnel numbers when I am suspicious about a climb done at 23 km/h? Not the least bit relevant. Nor even applicable for a peloton on the flats, or frankly even a bike with a rider on it most of the time.
You’re assuming that Jorgensen pulling was about stopping Yates…I don’t think that was the case. IMO, they were looking to keep the pace high and preventing Pog form jumping up. Regardless that they failed in that goal, sitting up would have been a really bad idea - that only suits Pog’s aggressive style and let’s him rest before attacking.
Sometimes you have no good choice and you do the best with limited options…a sustained high pace has been Pog’s downfall and Jonas’ strength in the past, so you go with what has historically worked even if the chances of success are low.
Pog 
is absolute gold gust, 
Jonas 
delivers sock-drawer-organiser levels of thrills for me. 
