I actually think I looked at it a long time ago but never finished it. Does Landis explain how he doped and why he tested positive after the stage. AFAICT, he never explained it. I guess that he took a blood bag that had Testosterone in it from training.
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Itās interesting: he touches on that somewhat. Heās very clear on what he was using and when. To make a long story short, he fought the charges so fiercely because the doping positive didnāt make any sense: he was popped for exogenous testosterone but was using HGH exclusively by that pointāboth in competition and at the time the blood was drawn.
Landis is an extremely polarizing figure (to say the least), but in context thereās little reason to think heās lying about such minutiae.
Pogacar needs to take up acting classes.
A certain American was helped a lot by his charisma
So the police raided the Bahrain team hotelā¦
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Not surprisedā¦.people have been talking about their performances for months.
I hope they donāt find anything (and because there is nothing to find vs well hidden), butā¦ā¦
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Carapaz was on the limit of his acting talent 
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The Bahrain hotel was raided for rider power files though, which is weird.
Several Bahrain riders upload everything to Strava? Sonny Colbrelliās 12-2020 training for example.
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They left with power files but probably they were looking for something else.
I thought that was interesting too.
I agree but then the next conclusion is that someone far up the chain has the ability to decide that they didnāt like Landis winning the Tour and wanted him out. Or he was somehow doped unknowingly at the Tour with testosterone.
Regarding Bahrain - even in the LA era, they knew to not having anything illegal in their hotel rooms or team buses.
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The way Pogacar attacks in the saddle is just mindblowing.
He is not a pure climber, yet he is the best climber to ever do it. Literally!
Every climb he rides, he is the fastest ever.
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On the other thread folks are talking about how none of the also-rans are willing to jeopardize their āpodium place.ā Sure, itās fun to watch some Ć¼ber-dude sit on the wheel of his rivals as they judiciously bump up against their threshold for the last 20 min of each mountain stage, but God what I would give for a Landis-style suicide attack right now. Doped or not, it was a joy to watch someone who did not give one single fsck about getting second.
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My dad used to say that every convict claimed they were innocent of the charges, but were proud of the other crimes they had āgotten away withāā¦
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I donāt think the analogy holds here: itās more like a serial killer who confesses in great detail to a long list of crimes, including the crime theyāre charged with, just claims that they bludgeoned the victim with a rolling pin and not a baseball bat.
Some more pot stirring. Here are the two w/kg from Ben OConner for the Tourmalet and the finishing climb
Ben finished 34 seconds down on the winner. You can assume he is a bit lighter than his normal weight of 67kg but these results are not really crazy.
Carapaz also has his data from yesterday: https://www.strava.com/activities/5626776242/power-curve/2910
Not exactly eye popping.
I know Cav and CO were going as easy as they could up the Tourmalet to meet the time cut but, anyone have his power for the climb?
Declercq did 305w for 51 mins on the last climb which is roughly 4w/kg for his size
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I was about to post that exact article.
Itās quite interesting.
I hadnāt factored in the temps and style of racing prior to the critical earlier stage climbs. It does seem that as the temps get higher and the racing is more steady, the top 3 are much closer on performance. I imagine that if we had Bernal, Remco and upright Roglic, weād have a much tighter battle to watch.
As Jonathan points out, Pogacar does see to go very well in the cold. MVDP is somewhat similar. We all seem to have our preferred temp range. Personally, any heat and my performance absolutely tanks, compared to my peers.
However, if itās really cold or wet as well, my performance also tanks, dramatically. Basically, I have a very narrow band of semi high performance operation.
This phenomenon is something we often see in the World Tour. I think itās more obvious in grand tours due to the greater fatigue. Jonathan is 100% on point here. What weāre watching here is fatigue resistance and glycogen sparing. The rider best able to conserve glycogen over each race day, is likely to be the winner. Provided they meet the GC requirements etc.
Pog does a ton of specific training on this, as do most of the GC riders now. Itās interesting that if one rider was able to tolerate just 20g more carbs per hour than their competitors, over a long 5hr stage, that alone could be enough for victory.
Ignoring the two critical earlier stages, it seems weāre talking about margins in seconds now. So, as a percentage, not much.
Personally, I havenāt really felt like we were seeing anything suspect this year, due to all the reasons many have listed.
The only performance thatās truly stood out to me in 2021 is by Mark Padum. His two mountain finishes were madness. Iām in no way pointing the finger. I do not know the young man and am not familiar with his previous performances.
He really was on another level those couple of days. As were a few of the Bahrain Victorious team. Thereās been some speculation over that in general, this year.
That may explain the recent room search.
I really hope it amounts to nothing.
Iām sure some individual World Tour riders are doping in some manner, but for it to be a complex team wide program in 2021, it would be horrible for the sport.
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