is Vingegaard clean?

I'm curious how long and how seriously people here have followed cycling? I have been in various forums just like here only for cycling since the late 90s. The disbelief to young Armstrong and the rabid defense, and on up through Pantani, Ullrich, Basso, Vinokourov, Operation Puerto then Contador's rise, onto Froome, etc.

And I can name every TdF winner from memory, 1903 on. I've studied the Tour for years as I love the history and culture of it. Full of wonderful characters.

And full of cheating. From the very beginning, and unapologetically up into the 1980s. Then they just hid it.

I am certain the top riders are cheating and have always cheated. I believe we are in a situation like the late 90s where doping had just made too much progress against testing.

You can bank on it that genetic stuff is being tried, and just wait until that is full throttle. Literal freaks of nature about to be born. No, not born, made.

Vingegaard was nothing prior to last year, all elite riders are skilled and of course stories relative to their peers, they will of course have always seemed freakish.

Of course, anyone who follows cycling or talks to those that do “knows” that, and that is also true for running, but some diehards on here just stubbornly refuse to believe it.

Nice clip, pity they didnt put any actual times on it.

P was and is ill, clearly. And V was super agressive, but still....

Good to hear running fans who watch one bike race a year weigh in on cycling.

Accusing people of doping with no evidence, from their office or more likely, basement.

Find something productive to do.

And here's a running fan who knows nothing about doping or cycling.

no

So what? You think only Pogacar and Vingegaard aren't clean but everyone else is? I assume if one rider is on the juice, everyone on his team must be. Would not surprise me if everyone in the tour was on the juice, but that doesn't explain why Vingegaard blew Pogacar out of the water and Pogacar blew everyone else out of the water.

Nice video from our SBS and the lovely, eloquent and intelligent Dr Bridie O'Donnell. I wonder if someone had the wherewithal to do a split screen of race with times.

On the video itself I timed the stop (by pause/play) from mechanic getting out of car (Pog already stationary) to the guy finishing the push off to 11 sec (1:35 to 1:46 on video), so close to 20sec including the slow down of momentum either side of stop

By the way to answer the question, certainly a red flag, though Pog did look a bit lack lustre, and in fact looked totally off in the next day's stage dropping 6 min

Pog has apparently been overheating

I also asked one of these types of questions. Shouldn't we worry more about ourselves than what some sub-4:00 miler is doing? Myself included.

Your belief in drugs is part of the problem.

Why can't people accept their place in the hierarchy?

I'm leaning towards clean.

1) Jumbo had clearly been targeting the last week with conservative riding for most of the rest of the tour, using up Wout in particular. Pog was exhausted from all the attacking (similar to Yates in the Giro a few years ago)

2) It makes little sense to just dope the best 2 riders (and Wout) - if they're on a level doping playing field the gaps would be as you would expect from a level clean field. It's not doping that created those gaps.

3) Pog hasn't raced in months. Of course his endurance wouldn't be as good.

4) All the great historic riders had strong rumours or hints, whether from journalists, ex-team mates, circumstantial evidence or something else. Other than Pog working with Gianetti, and that in the dim and distant past the Jumbo team was once sponsored by Rabobank has anyone seen any hints of smoke?

5) UAE don't give a crap about their reputation (same as Kazakhstan) so would be more likely to cheat. I don't see that with Jumbo - they have too much to lose.

No. They are all taking something.

But drugs don't make you faster. It's delusional nonsense to believe they do.

Better tell that to the peloton.

So many athletes in so many sports practising "delusional nonsense". You would think they would wake up to the fact it does nothing for them. From what you say they must be complete morons - and not just the athletes but coaches, trainers and physicians. And then of course there are the antidoping bodies. You must be the only smart guy on the planet.

It's even much worse than that. Kipchoge is the current world record holder who has 4 of the ten fastest marathon times ever. He is two time Olympic champion, he has won 15 of the 17 marathons he has ever ran and is widely considered the greatest marathon runner in history. If any marathoner were to blow away a field it would be him. Jonas Vingegaard was practically unheard of until coming from nowhere to get 2nd in the TdF in 2021, in his 6th year as a professional. Vingegaard's only other time trial win in his career came earlier this season in a small stage race in Spain that had none of the other TdF gc contenders and time trial specialists. This 60kg Dane manages to put in what is easily the most dominant performance in cycling history and perhaps in all of sporting history. Nothing at all suspicious there.

interesting comments

i want Jonas to be clean, but i am skeptical

the Vuelta will be fun to watch

but gotta love what Tadej said... he will support the UAE team from his sofa : )