Originally Posted by
furiousferret
I believe in the past people took up the sport in their late or mid teens, and now we have a lot of racers that started really early. There also may be somewhat of a talent gap at the top ranks compared to previous generations. While it seems that way from a fan perspective, its hard to tell unless one is actually involved in the sport. The Lance era more or less cratered progress in the sport, not just from Americans, as we weren't the only ones getting popped.
Also a fair chance kids are doing well because there are less substances in the races. I still think racers microdose and take passable medications, but they're not taking massive stacks of EPO and Test like in the past.
You make a good point. Males are well known to peak in strength in teens to low 20s. Their mind peak is different. With radios, do they even need to think? I posted about a lot about junior W/kg and got a lot of grief for it.
I have no question now where the max W/kg are and as much as we have seen it on U23 in the GT's there are a lot of kids that can best pro numbers in W/kg on shorter rides. The sport is not about power or W/kg. It is about winning.
They don't need to microdose. They need someone else telling them what to do in an ear piece.