Hate to be a cynic, but that thought sure crossed my mind. 21 year old rookie throws down 6.9 watts/kilo on that climb at the end of the 20th stage after 2000+ miles of racing in the previous 20 days? A minute and a half faster than everyone else in the field? Fastest ever TDF ascent on that climb, with a stop for a bike swap and no peloton draft momentum coming in? My BS radar was definitely pinging.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Mine a little bit too. I have seen the times for just the KOM section, but Carapaz all but soft-pedaled to the bottom of the KOM climb to try to win the polka dot jersey, and still didn't go as fast as Pogacar who was going full gas the full way.

This was my comparison point too. That was hard to believe. Also Dumoulin vs. Roglic, look at the spread between both of them on the final TT on 2018 and it was similar. Tadej just had an exceptional day and it felt a bit like the Floyd Landis magic day

Yeah it's really hard to look at a performance like that and not be a bit skeptical. The guy literally rode away from everyone else on the tour.

Big red flags when he stopped posting his power data...and then to come out after the TT & say that he didn't use a power meter or computer for that stage, because he wanted to ride 'by feel'...? Give us a break.

Most of the fans have been down this road before & are not stupid.

Maybe there was some Whiskey and a patch involved too (or Floyd can tell us what the concoction should have)?

Now reports that Quintana's room was raided by the French Police during the final week. That would explain why they were no where.

I don't even like being cynical but it's hard not to be in this case. Just expecting a Slovenian (or some other eastern European country) Fuentes to be found out in the coming years.

Also once again shows the strongest rider almost always wins over a 3 week bike race and that the team rarely makes much of a difference.

I saw the articles about Arkea being raided by the French Police in Meribel....my initial thought was this was the wrong team to raid (sorry, but if I am going to raid, there are a few other teams I would start with be it Vino's team or others)

I don't know French law, but I would assume there is something akin to probable cause to get a search warrant, something more specific than dominating a bike race or a history of doping.

You are somewhat new here. I believe that the rules here are no accusation without direct knowledge.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Not really a reply to you specifically...but...

I wish teams would stop employing staff who have been previously involved in doping. I get the argument that people deserve second chances, but I think lifetime bans from the sport are something that should be looked at. Otherwise, you end up with characters like Mauro Gianetti running teams. I want to believe that Pogocar is legit and had the best TT in the history of the sport, but since his team is managed by the same guy tied to Riccardo Ricco's doping, it's hard not to be especially skeptical.

https://www.bikeradar.com/news/blog-gianetti-is-ingrained-with-doping/


That article is from 2008. Here's a quote in case you don't want to click.
“Doping is so ingrained in certain managers, like GIanetti, that they can’t conceive of cycling any other way,” Heulot said on Friday. “The chief executive [of Saunier Duval] wanted to believe that Riccò and Piepoli were winning because the others had stopped doping. I told him that wasn’t the case…With people like GIanetti, we’re heading straight for an impasse. I just told the truth and I won’t retract any of it. When people ask me if there’s a risk of organized doping at Saunier Duval, I say ‘yes’ because I believe it, I feel it. I obviously don’t have any formal proof, but there are certain signals which don’t lie. I might be proved right in the future.”

I don't want this thread to go down the doping rabbit hole. But it was interesting reading about Mauro Gianetti. He was alleged in this 1998 NY Times article to have possibly used a form of synthetic blood when he passed out during a race, and ended up in the hospital with intravascular coagulation (among other issues). And now Operation Aderlass is allegedly looking into another form of synthetic hemoglobin. And Slovenian cycling regularly pops up in articles about Operation Aderlass. It's hard to stay optimistic.

Out of insane curiosity, and for sake of discussion.

What do you think the JV teammates think? About Roglic, his camaraderie with Pogacar? Should he have showed more killer instinct? And then that mind blowing performance? Surely Tom D and Tony have thoughts...

Tom Dumoulin is clearly at a loss to explain Pogacar, "I don't know how Pogačar climbed a minute faster than I did...My values were World Championship-worthy values...That's why I was all the more surprised that Pogačar was 1:21 faster. I'm sure I can tell you I'm never going to reach that level. I may be able to win one per cent somewhere, but not five per cent."

As for Roglic, who knows. He's hard to read. His chattiness with Pogacar before critical sections was a little odd, though I don't know if he was "taking the little guy under my wing" to help him get 2nd, or something else. I have a hard time throwing him under the bus, though. He rode a good Tour, overall.

What I infer from what Tom D was implying in his interviews goes like this:

• Tom D rode numbers that win races. Tom D almost won this TT.
• Primoz did not have a horrible ride...its in line with what he rides relative to Tom when Tom has a good day and he has an OK day.
• Tom's numbers and Primoz's numbers are completely explainable (or at least this is what Tom is implying)
• ...explain how Pogecar's numbers are 5% better than Tom's when Tom has a track record
• Pogecar, well we have no historical performance that are in line with what he cranked off

There's another angle to this year's events too that I've not seen debated much.
With the JV director being thrown off the Tour on Friday (after taking exception to the UCI taking the crank out of Roglic's bike on the Thurs).
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/...-uci-official-468958

Now why was the UCI doing what it did ? I don't believe it takes the yellow jersey's bike apart after every stage does it ?

They've been routinely checking for motors for a few years now.

Haha....or suddenly after that UCI motor check Roglic had no more power on the ITT


Or the UCI guy was just being an asshole and messing with their GC guy's bike and the DS really got annoyed and lost it (which is likely the case).

I also saw (although I can't quote the numbers off the top of my head and don't remember where I read it) that Pogacar and Tom had similar times through the first two checkpoints (within a second on the first one, several seconds at the second), so the majority of the time was taken out on the climb. Given how the two have climbed earlier in the tour, it's not that surprising. Also remember that Porte was less than a second slower than Tom. So it's not like Tom put up some out of this world time. I also read where Pogacar did the climb without a PM and computer.

from what i read, normally when the UCI want to disasemble a bike for fraud checks they get a team mechanic to do it in front of them. in this instance it was at the top of a mountain with no team mechanics on hand so the UCI guy did it and damaged the bike somehow (UCI deny this but it seems to be a known fact). so not unreasonable that the JV DS was upset and reacted accordingly - whether his reaction was beyond the appropriate or not is unclear but i think the ruling was something along the lines of "disrespectful" wo you have to wonder how much respect is due to the guy that just damaged the yellow jersey's race bike.

That's what I read as well, he damaged the bike which is what precipitated the problem.