Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => Racing => Topic started by: Peter on 18 March, 2021, 10:35:56 pm
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Do we think he is the real deal? He seems spectacularly good and so young that people like Gareth and the Yates "boys" might as well give up. Nobody seems to like Roglic, or at least not his manners (though they wouldn't have treated Merckx like that, or if they had, it wouldn't have made any difference). I thinkRoglic is a spectacularly tough rider and Pogacar seems to be a natural in both the usual senses of the word.
Is something rotten in the state of Slovenia?
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It goes without saying that mileage will vary. A lot.
It might be worth re-visiting the back end of the TdF 2020 thread (about one-third of it is basically reaction and debate sparked by Pog's Tour-winning time trial performance).
Page 12: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=113839.275
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Is something rotten in the state of Slovenia?
80% of the Slovenians I've met* have been nutters, if that helps.
* sample size: 5 (4 adults; none of them a member of Laibach)
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There was a lot of speculation about Pogacar W/kg output at the TdF time trial. Of course, it was based on hearsay and estimates, so not worth wasting too much time on.
However, were those numbers real, then of course it is a case of there being something rotten.
I think someone clever had calculated the maximum possible FTP without doping interventions at 6.2-6.3 W/kg and of course only 1 in a million could be trained to get to that level.
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I think they're dirty.
Is something rotten in the state of Slovenia?
Almost definitely.
If something looks too good to be true, it probably is.
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A once-in-a-generation spectacularly good racer happens periodically and sometimes two of them have overlapping careers, leading to legendary racing. Having a half-dozen or more such racers simultaneously is vanishingly unlikely and historically has generally involved drugs. We seem to be enjoying a multitude of spectacularly good bike racers in the past couple of years.
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I did wonder if Tom Dumoulin's obvious relief and much lighter tone in the video I saw of him the day after he'd "stepped back" for TJV was in any way related to no his longer having to follow the teams "regime".
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80% of the Slovenians I've met* have been nutters, if that helps.
* sample size: 5 (4 adults; none of them a member of Laibach)
I (inadvertently) booked Liabach for a gig in 1986. It was an interesting evening.
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Who is Gareth?
Cycling seems to have a number of very young riders coming through and winning stuff at the moment as well as Pogacar (eg Bernal, Evenepoel, maybe Pidcock?).
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Very much a changing of the guard last year.
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There was some discussion about what is changing on Eurosport during Nokere Koerse the other day.
Until recently, young riders would be scouted at small races, picked up by teams and then developed by being in the team.
Now riders come with power files and are contracted on that basis. Scientific and targeted training then accelerates their development to full potential much earlier.
One or two of the older professionals have voiced concerns about the effects this might have on the lengths of the young rider’s careers.
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I think there's a danger of calling out exceptional racers as potential drugs cheats in that it becomes a race to be the first one who can later say 'I told you so' if they're ever convicted. What happens if they aren't cheats or convicted (not necessarily the same thing)?
I'm not privy to any physiological data about Roglic or Pogacar or any of the other young riders, so I'm in no position to make any credible conclusions about the likelihood of them being 'assisted'. As giropaul states above, training gets ever more scientific, equipment improves, nutrition gets more effective, and no doubt the ability of teams and riders to push the boundaries of the rules improves also. None of us can profit by casting allegations, and we have at least as much chance of being wrong as being right - and in the process we are attempting to impugn the reputations of people who may well be entirely innocent.
Let sports police themselves as best they can. Either enjoy the sport for what it's worth and suspend your disbelief until such time as expert judges decree otherwise, or find a different way of wasting your presumably valuable spare time. To do otherwise would seem to only add unnecessary stress to life.
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Who is Gareth?
Cycling seems to have a number of very young riders coming through and winning stuff at the moment as well as Pogacar (eg Bernal, Evenepoel, maybe Pidcock?).
Sorry, Duncan, I meant Geraint. I've seen him hit so many trees it's rubbed off on me!
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I think there's a danger of calling out exceptional racers as potential drugs cheats in that it becomes a race to be the first one who can later say 'I told you so' if they're ever convicted. What happens if they aren't cheats or convicted (not necessarily the same thing)?
I'm not privy to any physiological data about Roglic or Pogacar or any of the other young riders, so I'm in no position to make any credible conclusions about the likelihood of them being 'assisted'. As giropaul states above, training gets ever more scientific, equipment improves, nutrition gets more effective, and no doubt the ability of teams and riders to push the boundaries of the rules improves also. None of us can profit by casting allegations, and we have at least as much chance of being wrong as being right - and in the process we are attempting to impugn the reputations of people who may well be entirely innocent.
Let sports police themselves as best they can. Either enjoy the sport for what it's worth and suspend your disbelief until such time as expert judges decree otherwise, or find a different way of wasting your presumably valuable spare time. To do otherwise would seem to only add unnecessary stress to life.
Thanks Tim. I'll do what I like, it doesn't cause me any stress at all. Just part of my general interest in cycling and life in general, I suppose. I would love Pogacar to be clean and I hope he is. Just a conversation, innit? Just as an aside, do you know where one might find any of these "expert judges"?
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Let sports police themselves as best they can. Either enjoy the sport for what it's worth and suspend your disbelief until such time as expert judges decree otherwise, or find a different way of wasting your presumably valuable spare time. To do otherwise would seem to only add unnecessary stress to life.
Largely, yes, but with the added provisos that:
a) Sport cannot police itself effectively because it doesn't want to.
b) Ineffectively policed sport is not sport, unless the sport is dope test evasion.
WRT The Pog, I think it is natural, given the entire history of cycling, that a performance far out of the norm raises eyebrows. This isn't a sportive open to all, it is a rarefied group of the elite of the elite.
I quite like a dope fuelled rampage up a mountain. It is often far more exciting that clean sports. I just don't want the team to then tell me it is attributable to having better nutrition, equipment, or training than other teams, when those same things are available to all, or at least most.
In that respect, I quite like Pog, and as long as he doesn't come up with Brailsford style bullshit more power to him.
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Ha! Don't you think he's already got enough power?! Pretty much agree with the post, though.
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I think there's a danger of calling out exceptional racers as potential drugs cheats in that it becomes a race to be the first one who can later say 'I told you so' if they're ever convicted. What happens if they aren't cheats or convicted (not necessarily the same thing)?
I'm not privy to any physiological data about Roglic or Pogacar or any of the other young riders, so I'm in no position to make any credible conclusions about the likelihood of them being 'assisted'. As giropaul states above, training gets ever more scientific, equipment improves, nutrition gets more effective, and no doubt the ability of teams and riders to push the boundaries of the rules improves also. None of us can profit by casting allegations, and we have at least as much chance of being wrong as being right - and in the process we are attempting to impugn the reputations of people who may well be entirely innocent.
Let sports police themselves as best they can. Either enjoy the sport for what it's worth and suspend your disbelief until such time as expert judges decree otherwise, or find a different way of wasting your presumably valuable spare time. To do otherwise would seem to only add unnecessary stress to life.
Thanks Tim. I'll do what I like, it doesn't cause me any stress at all. Just part of my general interest in cycling and life in general, I suppose. I would love Pogacar to be clean and I hope he is. Just a conversation, innit? Just as an aside, do you know where one might find any of these "expert judges"?
I'll let you know if I find any! And of course I didn't mean to suggest you wouldn't do what you like.
I was having a think about this while I was working on a bike this afternoon, and wondering why people get very exercised about it. (I'm not saying you do, but there are plenty that do get quite worked up about it). As HF says, Sport cannot police itself effectively because it doesn't want to. I think that's probably true, and we have to accept that they police it to the extent that they feel is worth doing. To be fair, I think there are some people working very hard to police sport to the extent that they feel is sustainable. But, at the end of the day, the spectacle isn't likely to alter much if either all drugs were successfully removed or, alternatively, it was a free-for-all. On the grounds that some people will (and have) dope themselves to death it's worth trying to stop it going too far, but it's probably impossible to do a great deal more than that unless it becomes like Gladiator, with the participants being slaves whose lives are totally controlled - I'm sure some already feel like that!
I understand HF getting upset about being lied to about it, but I kind of regard it like all show business; it's all part of the deception that allows the suspension of disbelief we need to enjoy the show. Those who aren't very good at that bit will fall by the wayside, and those whose principles are strong enough to attempt to resist the machine are probably destined to be no more than bit players. We pay them to entertain us, and we pay the most successful ones the most money. The temptations must be very strong.
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Yes, Tim, I agree with all of that - and about liars! On re-reading my post it could seem a bit snippy. Sorry, I didn't mean to be. It's a gift!
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Haha! No worries!
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I understand HF getting upset about being lied to about it, but I kind of regard it like all show business; it's all part of the deception that allows the suspension of disbelief we need to enjoy the show. Those who aren't very good at that bit will fall by the wayside, and those whose principles are strong enough to attempt to resist the machine are probably destined to be no more than bit players. We pay them to entertain us, and we pay the most successful ones the most money. The temptations must be very strong.
I get irritated by it rather than upset. It is much like listening to politicians lying, albeit far less consequential. The Sky shit was annoying because it was parroted endlessly by the media, and then repeated by the public as axiomatic. But really it was just post-hoc justification for a bit of sporting nationalism. Why annoying? Because it isn't patriotic to back cheats. It is the opposite of patriotic. Its fucking embarassing.
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I find most stuff that comes under the 'patriotism' flag (sorry!) is irritating, so I never felt embarrassed by it in that way, but I do understand what you mean. I suspect it's very much the same in most countries - what was the big drugs-in-sport thing that went down in Spain, when no Spanish participants were sanctioned? That was pretty cringeworthy.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operación_Puerto_doping_case (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operación_Puerto_doping_case)
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I find most stuff that comes under the 'patriotism' flag (sorry!) is irritating, so I never felt embarrassed by it in that way, but I do understand what you mean. I suspect it's very much the same in most countries - what was the big drugs-in-sport thing that went down in Spain, when no Spanish participants were sanctioned? That was pretty cringeworthy.
Well they were, but no thanks to the Spanish cycling authorities. Valverde got a ban eventually, after several attempts.
Worth remembering that the whole case was not generated by dope tests, but by Spanish police investigations.
Contador got away with it, although fate caught up with him later.
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Yes, that's the one. Your (LWaB's) link is incomplete, but I got there eventually. That could be my leisure reading for tomorrow!
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That Puerto thing, the Doc involved had a little book stuffed full of codes which identified individuals. But the judge at the trial ruled that only cyclists could be named. And I think the book was then destroyed.
Funnily enough this was at about the same time as the Spanish football team and a rather famous Spanish tennis player came to prominence.
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Football and tennis:)