Juan Foote

I know he is a young guy. His performance has been absolutely stellar, really have to give it to the guy.

Those mountain stages (17, 18) he is in touch with the front the entire race then at the end both days pulled away like everyone else is riding a tricycle.
It harkens me back to the "Lance" videos where they show him leaving the peloton behind like they are twiddling thumbs and compare to his "doping".

It really makes me wonder, cause if he isn't I wonder what he is bred with, or how much of him is robotic.....engine in the crank well again?

Lol (I jest) /kinda

TheoMcD

Nope, and I never know why people keep thinking if someone is doing well, they must be doping. Its also amusing to me we think this is terrible, best of the best asking them to be better, they are going to hunt for every advantage possible. No shock when they cross the blurry line.

Juan Foote

Obviously have no reason to think so outside his "so much better than everyone else" performance. It is said that the Yellow jersey imparts a certain amount of strength to the one whom wears it.

Caretaker

You must have been watching a different race to me. Pogacar won both stages by a handful of seconds (2+3)and neither Carapaz nor Vingegaard looked like they were riding tricycles.

No I don't believe he's doping.

Juan Foote

To be fair, if I were going to call out anyone for pulling over and doing a line on stage 18 it would be Danny Martin. That guy was blown on the first climb and had one hell of a comeback.

Caretaker

Dan Martin finished +24 on stage 18. Good effort but if he had the legs should have been up the front of the lead group before it split. DM is one guy I've no doubts about where PEDs are concerned.

79pmooney

I won't claim to know if he's (edit: Pogacar) doping. But, he won this race by 5 minutes over three weeks. He had no significant crashes or mechanicals, one bad day where he manged to lose little time and few crashes by teammates; all of whom finished. In other works, he and his teammates simply did what you do to win the Tour de France. (Doing all this doesn't guarantee the win. But failing to do so makes winning very difficult.)

By contrast - every single one of the competing GC teams erred on at least one of those basic principals or spent inordinate amounts of work for marginal gains, work that cost heavily in the days after. (Carapz's huge effort to gain nothing the day before the Alps. Next day a fresh Pogacar put minutes on him.)

Pogacar has shown himself to be a riding star from his early years of racing. Now maybe he has been "on program" since his junior days. He also might just be a very good GC rider who rides smart and is on a GC focused team that also rides smart. That adds up to a combo you simply cannot give minutes to. This year, every other team did exactly that. And guess what? He won by minutes. Five. Not a quarter of an hour, not by anything massive.

By contrast - Jumbo. Leader who is fully Pagacar's equal crashed out. While Roglic was still there, Vingegaard sacrificed time working for him. So, relative to Pogacar, minutes lost. Other Jumbo teammates also crashed out. They finished with 4 riders, three to support Vingegaard. The Tour is too hard. If you want to win, you have to do better on that score.

So, final podium - second place is a rider who already gave up minutes before becoming team leader on a very reduced squad. He still finished barely over 5 minutes behind. Third place is a rider who made a "fatal" mistake of going way too hard for nothing the day before the serious mountains. On a squad that was split its focus between several riders and losing a lot of manpower to crashes. Say 5 minutes loss due to the mismanagement of effort by Carapaz and another two to poor team support. He finished 7 minutes back.

Pogacar might have been doping. But just a good look at how the race played out doesn't suggest it.

GhostRider62

Whatever Greg says, I will buy.

I had looked at his power files for some decisive climbs, they didn't look all that much better than Lance's or Pantani.

I say, no.

Iride01 

I'm not going to assume doping for any individual until it's proven by investigation and a ruling by the authorities.

That's just such a bogus thing to tarnish achievements with rumors and speculation.

Now if you were to ask if the UCI and others are doing enough to check for doping, then that might merit discussion.

Nessism

no

one4smoke

My gut says...












wait for it...

























wait for it...




























No.

sincos

No idea, but right now I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. He was clearly a spectacular talent early, like LeMond or Fignon, not like Armstrong or Riis. Also, the 5+ gap to second is misleading: more than half of that came when JV was still trying to get Roglic back in the race. The race overall was a bit strange: Omi-Opi took out some serious contenders (who would not have beaten Pogacar, IMO, but we'll never know) and other pre-race favorites were beaten not just by Pogacar but by another young unknown Vingegaard. And his wins in the mountains were in his element -- cold weather. How he'll do in the high mountains when its hot remains to be seen.

But it's sad that we even have to ask this question. Part of me does wonder. Just as I wonder about van Aert on the Ventoux, or for that matter MVdP at Strade Bianche.

GlennR

Nope.. he's just super human.

MinnMan

Not sure. AFAIK, he's not releasing any power data from the TdF - does somebody know otherwise?

Screencap from Strava, showing Strava estimated power from stage 8. Insane numbers. Generally i don't trust Strava estimated power, but these numbers are well, super-human. 60 minute FTP of 8.4 W/kg. Sheesh.
He'd be better off releasing the real data and I think he's damaging himself by not.

MinnMan

Here is a sampling of real maximum FTP data from other pros. the highest number on this list is Bernal at 6.5 W/kg. Notice that the differences between the super-elite on this list and normal pros are SMALL. So either Strava is way off, or Pogacar is just totally off the charts. Or....
(Source: https://procyclinguk.com/pro-cyclist-ftp/)

MinnMan

my main point, possibly drowned out by all those numbers, is that Pogacar could do himself a favor by being more forthcoming with his power data.

downtube42

The question will always be there, because it's impossible to prove he's not. Testing has been exposed to be imperfect.

As has been stated, his rivals have either crashed out, made early sacrifices, or made glaring mistakes. He has has been both lucky and smart.

His tactical decisions on the bike are beyond what you'd expect from a rider of his age, and his team has done a fabulous job of keeping him fueled and hydrated.

I'm going to assume he's clean until proven otherwise.

Germany_chris

Probably just like most of the pro peloton.

Juan Foote

As a point of discussion.

In the past there have been all manner of methods to increase performance all the way from drinking some brandy in the early days, meth in the middle, and blood doping, etc. now.
When you have a very small group of individuals with power output that is (to borrow the term from above) "super human" and this individual continues this for weeks at a time without showing any sign of weakness it is telling on it's own.

I don't believe that cheating in professional cycling has stopped, or is ever going to stop. My personal thoughts are that there has been found something new that isn't banned yet, a method for doping that is harder or impossible to detect currently, or a group of folks are getting paid not to look for it.
The real question in my mind is "what is it"?

I would re-iterate my own feelings about it that IF he is cheating AND others are cheating, the field is somewhat leveled (I won't rehash some old stuff here) and even if jacked up, performing at this level, this long is an astounding feat either way.

Aside from my suspicions, he was also the best/youngest rider too? So perhaps what we are going to see is a shift where the entire field becomes far younger, and careers span much less time so far as being competitive.

Caretaker

There's a doper (proven) in the peloton but lots of people here think he's amazing.

MinnMan

15 years ago.

The only logical extension of your point of view is that all known dopers are banned for life.

Caretaker

That's not a logical interpretation, I just want people to take account of a rider's history of drug (blood doping) use, denial and that he is still performing at a high level at age 41. Why is there all this focus on a young guy like Pogacar (aged 22) when most laud the performance (one stage 2nd place and 24th on GC) of this guy at the end of his career? History shows that often it's riders coming towards the end that have most to gain and least to loose by doping.

Why pick on Pogacar rather than you know who?

GhostRider62

Those numbers are clearly not accurate, much like Strava's power estimates generally. They are a joke.

Stage 8 TdF 2020 power file showed how he destroyed the field, the final 15 minutes were at 6.45 W/kg. So, we are supposed to believe he gained 50% MORE power at that duration within just the past year? What did he grow a third lung? Preposterous.

MinnMan

It's not a moral question, it's a question of what is going on in the races present-day. I care if somebody has an unfair advantage on the road now, and what they did 15 years ago is immaterial. You have no evidence behind your insinuation.

The questions are raised about Pogacar because his apparent power is anomalous. I don't know if he is clean or dirty, but his refusal to release real power numbers doesn't help.

MinnMan

Maybe so. What's the justifiable reason he won't release real data when his reputation is on the line?