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Old 07-18-21, 11:06 AM
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79pmooney
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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.

Last edited by 79pmooney; 07-18-21 at 11:09 AM. Reason: added Pogacar to first sentence for clarity
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