The irony in all your posts is your constant assertion that Jonas is cheating based off the argument of ‘stick figure climb real good’ yet you have no suspicions about Pogi, who has just laid down the 2 greatest climbing performances of all time, also handily beats rouleurs in their own terrain, could place top 10 in a field sprint if he wanted to.
Jonas is a classic GC climbing specialist. He’s extremely good at his one niche, but has many exploitable weaknesses outside of that. How is that more suspicious than 1 single person being better than 99.99% of the peloton at any possible discipline in cycling? Not to mention he rides for a team with a history of doping accusations (Lampre) whose team principles were implicated in past allegations, and has the biggest budget of any team in cycling with all of the morals of a gulf oil state sports washing campaign to boot. The worst offense to me though is that they can simply afford to sign every emerging GC prospect and put them all on one team that deprives us getting to see prospects like Ayuso, Almeida, and Del Toro to possibly provide any competition in future races. Meanwhile Visma lost their title sponsor and had to sell their 2nd star rider to Bora to save money. UAE has double the points of any other team in the UCI points ranking and Visma are the evil villains of cycling?
I choose to believe that neither Pogi or Jonas are doping in the sense that they are knowingly violating rules for banned substances, though I expect both teams are taking every possible advantage they can in either gray areas or things that may not be prohibited yet but may be in the future. The idea that Visma would be willing to cross a line that UAE wouldn’t is laughable though.
Pogacar is the greatest cyclist of our generation, potentially of all time. For that he deserves my respect and admiration. I like all the riders on UAE really, but the combination of all of them in one team is terrible for having meaningful and entertaining competition in cycling.
No where in my post did I say I thought Pogi was sparkly clean. I was a Pantani fan, and got burned. I was (in some respects) a Lance fan, and I got burned. I’m a Pogi fan, but with reservations. I’m simply way more suspicious of Jonas than Pogi. With Pogi, there’s a history, from him as a 12 year old stand out, progressing towards being a phenom. Jonas, on the other hand, was a domestique who in the space of one year became the world’s greatest TdF rider. Sure, he’s a pure climber, but where did that TT last year come from? That was a little too out there, far more than Pog’s performances this weekend. Not to mention his miracle comeback. I’ve seen miracle comebacks, got burned there to
If you take the outcome as binary, meaning Pog took time and Jonas lost time yesterday, then yes, Visma wasted the entire effort on the day. They could have stayed home and just conceded.
What none of us know is if the effort Visma put in blunted Pog’s attack. He gained about a minute and is up about three. If Visma doesn’t ride and lets UAE arrive with fresh legs perhaps Jonas loses much more.
I don’t view a race of this duration as offense or defense. It’s a collection of events in which the individual leaders and their teammates all play important roles. It’s fine if others don’t view it that way and one to focus on a narrower view.
In terms of the race, folks are concluding it is over. My opinion, I do think Pog will win. I said that many days ago upthread. I had a rational and view which may or may not be correct.
While I certainly like Pog’s chances, this race is far from over.
Wednesday’s stage is very interesting profile and it could be favorable to Visma. It’s possible that Jonas is done and is going to settle for second place. But if they are still going for it, we could see them push very hard. They might not shake Pog on one day, but they might do enough damage to shift things toward Jonas in an upcoming stage.
Couple other things:
It doesn’t matter what others are saying. Do we think anyone spectating or commentating has true insight into how Pog and Jonas are feeling outside of the team? It’s all guessing and wondering and talking. Those guys are going to keep info very tight to the vest. It’s not just this year, they’ll be back for many more to come.
Remco isn’t riding for the win. He’s said as much. He knows he can’t beat Pog and JV and is consolidating around 3rd overall and likely looking to win the TT. That means we cannot over interpret anything he does outside of that framework.
With that I’m out. Appreciate your views and we’ll all have fun watching the upcoming stages.
I do think that the lack of domestics is playing a huge factor, but it’s not the sole culprit.
JV is a bit below, which is ABSOLUTELY EXPECTED. The guy was fighting for life 2/3 months ago. His performance now is unbelievable. He is 3 min down from one of the best TP ever. So far.
Remember Aert pulling high mountains, Roglic and JV killing TP, Kuss putting the hammer down and smashing all domestics, ALL.
Those factors made TP burn undesirable matches, so the tank was half empty when they were in the mountains “mano a mano”. Now, it is the opposite.
I find the team tactic discussion very interesting. My opinion, team strength and capabilities matter, to a point.
If one rider is measurably better (Jonas last year, pog this year) then the team strength primarily matters in minimizing disasters but, barring a major incident, the stronger rider will win out
If the riders are very close then team composition and strength can make the difference (2022 tdf)
You can see this within stages and across stage races.
On stage 4 uae leveraged their climbing superiority to make a relatively easy (low gradient, headwind) climb hard enough that they could exploit the lack of elite climbing domestique to get a gap. Theoretically kuss would’ve still been there when pog attacked and could’ve gotten Jonas across on the descent, similar to what roglic did for him on stage 11
Likewise, on stage 9 visma was able to utilize their stronger flats team to support Jonas and keep him positioned as well as fully supported for attacks and mechanicals
Finally, as we saw yesterday, the lack of kuss or 2022 wva left visma with a single domestique for the final climb. Would a stronger team have broken pog? No. But it would’ve had them finishing much closer to each other and on a year where they are more closely matched could’ve made the decisive difference
Outside of the GC, I thought Astana working the early stages of the tour to place Cav perfectly for his win was an exquisite example of teamwork in pro cycling. They had a goal, they executed perfectly toward that goal across several days and it worked out.
Not just the leadout train for the stage win, but how they took care of him each day leading up to that point.
Nothing about that win was an accident. Yes, of course the individual rider had to finish it off. But without the team and the teamwork that historic win (most likely) doesn’t happen.
Cycling is a very interesting sport in part because of how hard the support riders work and train and how little credit or acknowledgment they get for it.
That was an extra $0.02 but the work Astana did to help Cav get that win is worth noting. And it is a rest day after all. And Cavendish is still in the race so… maybe…
Given the history of the sport, I can’t blame anyone for being skeptical.
High level, people are free to be fans of any rider or team they want to and to root for or against anyone they like. It’s just blown my mind that there’s a sentiment out there, not necessarily from you, that Pogi is somehow an upstart underdog that is giving comeuppance to Visma after being on the back-foot the last 2 years. Him and his team are as far as you can possibly get from being underdogs.
That doesn’t mean I want to see Visma sweep all 3 GTs again. I don’t think it’s good for the sport to see any team be that dominant and am worried we’ve just traded one for another… but on steroids (figuratively, though potentially also literally )
This is somewhat eye-opening. Jonas apparently was asked about the numbers and said they were quite accurate. (Patrick Broe works for Visma but has nothing to do with these estimations.)
TBH my concern as a fan is that if this is what Pog looks like when he has his nutrition and cooling dialed, we’re in for a lot of boring Tour GCs for the next 5-8 years. Jonas has said that by the numbers, Stage 15 was one of his best efforts ever, and Pog looked totally imperious in comparison.
I just assume that all athletes are doping. From cycling to swimming to track to soccer, basketball baseball and hockey. There is 0 reason not to as a professional with the money they make. Just look at the bodies of every soccer and basketball player compared to those from 20-30 years ago. Not only that, soccer players are now required to constantly press and run hard the entire game, for game after game.
I still enjoy the competition. But to think any of it is clean anymore is very naive. There are stuff out there with half lives of hours that can’t be tested. And people are starting as teenagers during Developement when nobody is being tested.
Oh, I wouldn’t assume that at all. Who’s to say Jonas can’t take a step up in fitness? Or find better gear than Pogi. Or conceal a bigger e-motor in his bike. Whatever the case may be going on here. Doped or clean, these two are pretty closely matched, and no reason to assume one will dominate the other. Or that someone else even better won’t come along.
It would be interesting to see what science says about these performances… do they approach or exceed theoretical limits of performance? are comparable gains being made in other sports with similar or far greater incentives and funding to improve performance? etc…
It is certain that there is drug use among cyclists. The incentives are too great. I would expect far more widespread performance enhancing drug use in sports with more $ than cycling (i.e. greater rewards), state actors (e.g. olympics) and without the traumatic history cycling has around drugs that has motivated institutions of cycling to put what seems like the most aggressive drug testing regime among sport in place.
If I were an older, somewhat successful cyclist facing injury or decreased performance near end of career I’d be tempted to explore drugs. It is a pretty rational thing to do.
[quote=“darrellcraig, post:3218, topic:80433, full:true”].
If I were an older, somewhat successful cyclist facing injury or decreased performance near end of career I’d be tempted to explore drugs. It is a pretty rational thing to do.
[/quote]
It happens in all sports and at all levels, though the aging athlete holding on definitely.
Look at baseball… Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire & Sammy Sosa all on the top of their game. You get very talented “next level” athletes like Levi Leipheimer. He came out and said he did it to “see how good he could be.” In running you get runners on the road circuit It happens with every level of the sport sadly.
True. Sea level have risen so when they go and do altitude camps at 3000 meters above sea level now then they’re actually higher up than they were in the past.
One take from when w/kg calculations hit the scene. Discussion of Riis’ 6,8w/kg directly relevant to what Pogacar did.
In my mind Riis and Pantani’s records are so nuclear that beating them amounts to failing an IQ test, especially when you obliterate them by minutes.
Luckily for the riders no one cares anymore. Post Lance fallout Sky riders justly faced at least some semi serious media questions. Now it’s carbs and good vibes, Instagrammable stars instead of bullies, and not a peep from the journos.
Some speculation on the Escape Collective Tour Daily podcast yesterday that Phillipsen gifted Cav his record-breaking stage win…I don’t see it after watching the video again.
Cav darted through the gap to his left and opened up a big gap immediately…jasper seems to be chasing hard the whole time, but he just left it too late.
)