Highlights of 2024 – Part II

45 thoughts on “Highlights of 2024 – Part II”

1. “Pogačar’s original motivation of winning a grand tour after a series of defeats and then seeing what happens in July”.

   Or… his original motivation never sounded like that.

   *All* the info we have tells a whole different story, which by the way was set in stone by facts in hindsight, too.

   Note that such info came in consistently from different sources before, during and after the events, plus it could take the form of conjecture (before), analysis (after), explicit interviews, insight anonymous disclosure etc.

   The above quote actually makes no sense at all when checked against events, like Pogi coming into the Giro with lacking form (relative to his 2024 real-life form range).

   Apparent common sense by many fans and superficial twitter commenters was just plain wrong. The athlete and his staff obviously had a more complete perspective, and, unlike others, they never needed to lie or half-lie about it.

   • I still think the original plan, now a year old had the Giro as the goal with the Tour more open. There does seem to have been a change in tone in April with the Tour’s priority raised.

     • Hard to defend because Vingo’s accident happened exactly one month before the Giro actually started (April 4 – May 4) which is definitely too little time to fully shift a preparation.

       Just compare the level of relative form on, say, May 4, May 19, June 30, July 14 (two-week steps, relevant stages, but you can also pick others and notice the same).
       You just can’t build this shape of the form curve if you’re changing the priorities of your programme on April 5.
       It’s like high-speed trains, you know you won’t be able to get through a bend as you should if things aren’t well set like 5 kms before… or, in a different manner, it’s like a big boat, you can veer of course, but within a given geometry whose costraints are way more limiting than you’d expect.

       The race calendar has been decided mid-December and wasn’t changed. It was clearly aimed at a serious go for the double.

       The key was the Olympics and the consequent gap between Giro and Tour. Plus, the team and the athlete felt it shouldn’t be tackled when Pogi was still too young, although he said long before, even after *losing* the TDFs, that he felt able to race for victory multiple GTs in a season (a big “boasting risk” indeed…).
       On a different level, their main concern was really the mental aspect, not the rivals, as they were saying since December.

       All the above is consistent with what the staff always said and not at all with any change of perspective on April 5.

       Do you seriously believe that being Pogačar able, as he was, and not by pure chance (he did it again in Autumn) to reach the sort of peak he got, uhmm, no, he wasn’t going to do that… if Vingo was well? It’s sheer nonsense, even more so as all the data, including statements from Visma, confirm that Vingo 2022-2023 wasn’t going to be enough to beat 2024 Pogačar.

       If anything, you could conjecture that they noticed earlier on that Visma had a slight drop in performance, especially Vingo at Tirreno (their level being still more than enough to kill the competition). But it’s totally unnecessary.

       It’s a bit simpler than that. Pogi and the team knew what their 2024 hand could be, and played accordingly. They clearly had hints about the impact of the 2023 accident on training plus the potential age-related growth (trainers have been able to make decent forecasts on the above for decades with a handful of in-depth figures, they just don’t disclose it often for obvious reasons). And maybe some other info.

       Let me add that my 2023 conjectures were also pretty different from what actually happened. I believed that Pogi was going to do the double because he knew that if Vingo and Visma had a repeat of their 2023 magic he’d lose anyway while if they didn’t, he’d win anyway. I was quite wrong! Evidently, at UAE they had much more trust (or information) than I expected. At the same time, Vingo pulled out an impressive TDF performance despite a context of team decline.

       I suspect that our shared cognitive mistake is so often applying common logic or strategy to extraordinary situations and persons.

       • You see it more suddenly, eg a switch in April. I think it’s more a change over time rather than a sudden response but that attitudes and confidence did shift. For example Pogačar changed coach, position, method etc over the winter and seems to have got a lot out of this, it created a self-reinforcing aspect.

         • Although with doubts, I can surely agree more with this latter perspective, which in a way is also closer to what I had conjectured the year before, yet I was answering directly to yours above: “There does seem to have been a change in tone in April with the Tour’s priority raised”.
           The coach change was due to the former one being hired by a football team, but there was a lot of continuity. Along with some change, of course.

           We’ll never know, but for sure it’s a lesson about common sense and basic assumptions on supposed athletes’ mentality being often… well off the mark to say the least; a lesson which might be applied to Pogi’s 2025, too, who knows? I expect a high level repeat for one more season (2025) at least, then growing probabilities of a new balance shifting, but – cycling as it works nowadays – I wouldn’t be surprised at all by any different scenario.

2. Without considering hindsight, I’d pick 14 and 15. I’d perhaps remove 13 and 18.
   2 and 4 were very good, too, especially in the heat of the moment, less so if we look at this all as a proper afterthought.
   To me, the peak of the race was clearly Le Lioran, anyway. Yet, it obviously makes sense only along with the rest.
   In the 3rd week I also liked Remco challenging Vingo for 2nd place although with few actual chances. But generally it was a “weak week” for sure, unlike the first two.

   • 14 and 15 are “very good”, if you trust Gianetti.

     • They’re very good because you don’t need to trust Gianetti to appreciate them, they quite much made sense in themselves. What’s interesting is that rivals felt like that, too, unlike other races.
       More peculiar things could be seen in the first week, if that’s your point. At UAE, for sure, but not only at UAE’s.
       However, I agree that I’d like to see a more balanced situation among teams. But it’s not like it would change so very very very much. Other teams had a good season “as a team”, yet their best athletes didn’t come close, just as it could be seen in previous years.

       • Many of the ascend records from the 1990s still stand – Riis at Hautacam etc – and Pantani’s PDB was just as “impressive” (or rather “aided”). But suddenly Pogi mauls it. Not by seconds but by 3+ minutes.

         Yes I know material, training etc etc the last 30+ years, but it still keeps many of the other ascends – at least so far – out of reach for even Pogi and Vingo.

         Don’t you think Pogis performance here was just *slightly* dubious?

         • Pantani’s PDB wasn’t as impressive in terms of chrono and is a poor stat due to the too few ascents through the decades. Long explained before on these pages and won’t delve into it again.

           Record ascents in cycling generally mean *very* little. They became a fashion trend on Twitter because they give you the illusion you’re measuring something objective. Maybe only some specific uphill ITTs would work or some specific comparison when by pure chance circumstances were extremely similar.

           Normally, the impact of single stage design, position of the stage within the 3 weeks and strategic situation of the GT in that moment, whole design of the GT, tactics of the day etc. have a brutal impact without even starting to name weather, form etc.

           If anything, it makes more sense, as some do, to compare *different* climbs which you select because they happen to share a set of opportune similarities. Or a broad range of climbing events taken as a set.

           PS Just check, one element among dozens, what the TDF route was like in the 80s and 90s, now look at the junior course they race today…

         • @gabriele

           If I recall correctly, you found Vingo’s 7,4 ᵉW/Kg on the last 13 minutes of Dormancy “suspicious”, but not Pogi’s 7 ᵉW/Kg for 40 minutes on PDB?

         • No, you don’t recall it correctly.
           I rarely or even never made any case about w/kg figures for the above mentioned reasons.
           In that case, it was rather about distribution of performances across the peloton in a situation with no race dynamics (how long did Pogi sit on wheels on PDB vs. Vingo that day?) and also about comparative results in the flat part of the ITT, not just to Pogi who may have add a bad day but also relative to specialists.
           Plus, much was about Vingo’s general record in ITTs.
           Back then, re: his past record, but now we can add… following ones, too.
           That stage sits among the less coherent “things” we’ve seen in cycling, PDB if anything is about a possible boost in terms of “percentage of difference” applied on a situation which in itself mirrors consistently a state of facts both in terms of tactics that day and athlete’s profile.

         • @Anon
           Go and have a look under the Courchevel preview. Wow, I was a very good commenter 😛

         • https://inrng.com/2023/07/tour-de-france-stage-17-preview-courchevel/

           (Worth re-reading regardless of what one´s opinion was/is/could turn towards.)

         • @gabriele,

           Your “outlier” criterium is based on competitors performances being (almost) consistent. But if – say – 3-4 of Vingo’s main competitors on Dormancy were sub-par that day (or not present), then the outlier concept fails.

           So let me ask you directly:

           Do you consider it fishy to be able to put in 7,4 ᵉW/Kg over 13 minutes or fishy to be able to put in 7 ᵉW/Kg over 40 minutes? Or both? Or none?

           And do you find Vingo’s Dormancy performance fishy? But not Pogis PDB?

         • @Anon, you didn’t understand the argument at all.
           We’ve got a huge historical record *of distributions* to check against. It implies that such a big set as a term of comparison *already includes* the possibility of having some given day when many competitors are subpar or aren’t there etc. In fact, the most extreme distribution must depend on factors like those. Still they pale against that ITT. The question isn’t that Vingo’s performance in itself is an outlier against rivals’ or his own record, which are secundary arguments, the *real outlier* here is the resulting event as a whole, which of course includes individual performances. May I suggest you read again Thursday’s link if you are interested.

           Secondly, and only as you name it, the “underperforming rivals” argument can also be easily debunked (and excluding Pogi from the picture, too), as I also did on that post.

           Third, I am not especially interested in defining what is “dodgy” unless it is a long term scheme with a structured monopoly of techniques or institutional protections. To make this point clearer, IF, say, Visma had found some magical potion which worked only for one or two seasons, then everybody or most got that, or that if teams are taking turns in being allowed a little extra push or whatever along these lines, or IF Vingo had gone far with some technology then thought about his health, family or whatever, IF, IF, IF… (NOT THAT I positively believe any of the above, I just don’t care to establish a stance on all that stuff for now), well, IF it was “just” that, one extra TDF victory is just an accident in the perspective of a whole palmarés or cycling history. Who cares? Unless we’re in a situation as the one I defined above to start with, which actually twists results a lot, a single rocket performance will progressively fall into irrelevant or just a curiosity. Even if it’s *not* due to anything dodgy! Think Pereiro Sio’s TDF or even Sastre’s. Decades give a lot of context. Albeit more sparsely, I believe I also had made this POV clear enough back then.

           – – –

           Now, to your question. First, a secundary detail. Ex falso sequitur quodlibet, i.e., from an imaginary premise *any* deduction can be derived. Vingo confirmed his PDB data, does this make Pogi’s figures trustworthy as well? Not exactly IMHO. All the calculations I’ve seen clearly underestimate the watts saved while Pogi was sitting on wheels. Vingo’s data are better because he actually was on the front much more time. But I won’t even start debating that. Simply, I suspect there’s a good deal of maybe unintentioned clickbait behind much of that stuff. Nuclear figures, historical records, never seen before, superhuman… follow my account! Sensationalism. Of course, Pogi is sensational (more on this later), but my sensation is that I wouldn’t take all the figures and graph for granted. In-depth work by professional, not always available, looks different and shows things differently. It doesn’t read as fast as a meme of course.

           Secondly, Pogi, even before 2024, even when he was *losing* the TDFs, was steadily being suggested as Merckx’s heir, which curiously never happened to Vingo even when he was dominating the 2023 TDF. Nobody compared him to, say, Indurain or Pantani or Gaul either. Why that? Because he’s pale? Because he’s shy (or whatever)?
           Note that nobody even compared, say, Armstrong at his best and “most trusted moment” to Merckx, not even to Indurain probably (maybe some Liggett). Instead, everybody started to feel *five* years ago (to keep that close) that Pogačar could be somebody special, then that became clearer and clearer. Unless he’s discovered to have used a motor for years (complicated but possible), if he’s “just” caught doping, even this wouldn’t change the above perspective.
           Well beyond watts and minutes, the whole picture says that Pogačar is – as an athlete, not on a single day – a total outlier for the sport. And the sport has had a good deal of doping freaks to test against, so if it’s not “in him” what makes him so different, it must be something very different and new.
           All the above simply implies that it’s more reasonable to expect the unexpected.
           You can’t rate a single performance as strange as with anybody else because it belongs to a more consistent mark than it has happened with others.
           Note that the above applies, to a different extent, also to Remco, Van Aert, van der Poel… and Vingo. I had no special issue with the Galibier 2022 stage. Of course, was Pogi beating Levreyesen on the track I’d raise my eyebrow. Wasn’t it such a technical race and hadn’t Pogi shown he ride great when not on asphalt, to me the Ronde would be more surprising than PDB. Also note that I have no issue with Vos winning on the track, road, CX etc.
           Context is paramount. Which is why your question is wrong, whatever the answer.

           As a final answer, I consider that notorious ITT more exceptional (be it merely in statistical terms) – both in itself and relative to the athletes which protagonised it – than any single performance I’ve seen from Pogi for now. Yet, I also believe that team UAE as a whole enjoyed some sort of boost in 2024 (“good prep”, “enthusiasm”, “tech” make of it what you wish) which clearly put the team in a similar place as Jumbo Visma, unlike previous seasons. Several other teams have had their golden seasons in recent times, albeit not producing any Pogi, Vingo, Remco or Wout all the same. I *seriously* believe there can be a range of reasons of any sort, including “dodgy” ones (not necessarily so), but if it doesn’t turn into a long monopoly and if it doesn’t make donkeys fly, it’s not worth much speculation.
           As a mere curiosity, personally the most “dodgy” (pffff) thing I saw from Pogi this year was probably the Lombardia’s finale *after* the Colma. But so many people deemed it more normal as they simply got used to, or it just matched their common sporting narratives, irrespective of them making sense or not.

         • @gabriele

           Not sure exactly what all your points are, but I gather it is “Yes, Vingo’s Dormancy was fishy” and “No, golden boy Pogi’s PDB was just as clean as a white sheet”.

           So let me ask – if we look beside the individuals and your dodgy statistics – which hypothetical performance would you consider most fishy:

           1) A 13 min 7,4 ᵉW/Kg performance or
           2) A 40 min 7,0 ᵉW/Kg performance?

           From a purely physiological POW. And why.

           I’m interested in the arguments, as they are comparable to similar discussions in the running and x-country skiing world I’ve seen.

         • @gabriele

           And yes, I read your comments on th Courchevel review. And I’m certain you would have written something else if your golden bóy Pogi had done what Vingo did.

         • As I already said, no right answer can be given to a wrong question.

           Even in its most abstract form, like comparing two lab tests by the same athlete, it would depend hugely on the single athlete.

           And it would mean absolutely nothing for real life performances.

           So I frankly don’t know and I’m happy like that.

           No idea about where to find that database of performance range “naturally” (???) available to special human beings like one in billions as both Pogi and Vingo are. You can only observe real event as they happen and as a whole, the rest is conjecture, feebler and feebler the further you get from abundance of data.

           Which is why it’s much more interesting, relevant and meaningful to compare real result distributions on a given real day, even if it’s apparently beyond the understanding of most adult people, which indeed, as a recent “dodgy stat” proves, struggle to use maths beyond basic sum/difference for paying at the supermarket.

           And that’s also why I imagine you ending up caught in similar neverending meaningless debates which of course can last forever because they actually don’t go anywhere. Too often nobody among those involved has the full disclosure, technical knowledge and expertise to even produce any sort of answer, good or bad, to the wrong question. Which also allows the nonsense to go on.
           I, for one, haven’t that ability, no doubt.

           If you want to try and understand the sort of answer I’m providing, albeit different from your expectations, you might discover that it provides some advance. If you don’t even try, which is what’s apparently happening here, well, you can stay stuck where you are with your drama.
           For sure, Hamlet looks a luckier pal with his “to be or not to be?” than you with your “7.4 or 7?”.

         • Re: writing something else if at Courchevel it was Pogi winning.

           Such a petty attempt of, what?, “provocation”?, proves how far you are from getting any point.

           Had I did the full research, that part would have stayed the same.
           Extraordinary.

           But… I wouldn’t!, because all of the rest.

           And, in any case, slightly “less extraordinary” (!) than Vingo doing the same, precisely because Pogi had already established himself as a slightly “more extraordinary” athlete, plus because he had already filed similar performances in a similar exercise. Especially but not exclusively the flatter parts.

           Context.

           (The same idea of context which I spoke very clearly about re: 2024 UAE.)

           So, yes, I’d have been less surprised by Pogi doing that, or even by Vingo winning by 30 seconds. Me and most qualified cycling commenters.
           When Vingo wins the Ronde or even Sanremo, I’d be more surprised than by a Pogi success. Must be fandom, I guess.

           We can go on with the “what if” forever, but what happened is what it happened.
           Why losing your time like this? Enjoy a special moment of cycling history.
           I, for one, I’m hugely happy that Vingo is there to have a challenge, just as MvdP in one-day racing, and things as they are now I don’t care much about the way the Dane got there, especially as he establishes himself more and more as a valid athlete.
           2022 was the best Tour in recent years, by far. Irrelevant who’d win.
           I already wrote that what I criticise in 2023 is the lack of consistence, had they built another 2022 it would have been just perfect.

         • Gabriele,

           Being fairly new to this blog (and being Danish) I’m curious about your views on Vingegaard’s Dormancy-TT. Vingegaard, at least in Denmark ;), is known for being a bit choosy regarding TTs, which to ride and go deep in, so exactly where do you see an “unexpected” deviation?

           You might have covered this in depth before, but if you give the highlights I’ll be grateful. I’ll keep out of the JVTP fight 😉

3. I still can’t make up my mind as to whether it was a good Tour which fell away in the final week, or if it was a mediocre edition that had periodic flashes of excitement.

   But, yeah, stage 1 was a clear highlight, right from the moment where there were reasonably serious names trying to get in the early break, then there not being enough teams or riders left to chase the break down. And with hindsight that saved dsm’s race, they did absolutely nothing else in the remaining twenty stages. I’d never heard of van den Broek before he was selected in their line up and I don’t think I heard his name again all season.

   • Van den Broeck did win the Tour of Turkey earlier in the year. But few had heard of him before, in just 2021 he was doing “village” races, then shot up the ranks before starting the Tour as a neo-pro. Being able to hang on in the breakaway that day when the likes of Madouas, Abrahamsen, Izagirre and Mohorič were gone is impressive. We might hear more of him but one question for 2025 is where does he find his niche?

     • Motivation can be paramount.
       No other combination of riders could probably have kept that break away, so why should any of those seasoned break masters go deep for it?
       On the contrary, Van Den Broeck knew he had something to fight for as hard as he could.
       There’s a beautiful recent relatively long interview to Bardet somewhere out there, where (among millions other interesting things he says) he explains in detail that finale.

       We tend to forget that, despite the huge efforts indeed displayed, in a GT athletes seldom get to that real *physiological* 100% which is so hard to achieve mentally that it’s beyond willpower or voluntary deliberation for most persons, including most pro athletes. Think the Hour etc. You can hit that spot through a very specific long conditioning work (that many times just can’t be repeated), or in special circumstances, or as a (dangerous) gift available to the athlete thanks to his or her personal character.
       It’s what you informally call “the 110%”… which makes no sense, strictly speaking, but means a lot of the above.

4. It is all too long ago for me but perhaps the final stage was the highlight because Pogacar removed all doubt about who was the strongest after three weeks … and it wasn’t as though he had taken it easy at any stage.

5. Every year we’re hoping that the Tour will go down to the wire on the final day, but this almost never happens. And when it did happen in 2023 Giro, there were (justified) complaints that the difficulty of the final TT stifled GC riders’ ambition/aggressiveness in the preceding mountain stages (i.e. the late GC changes were a result of over-engineered parlours, rather than more-fluid/chaotic/exciting action on the road).

   The 2019 Tour was well poised in the final days, until the weather disruption ruined it. But generally I think we need to be more realistic in our hopes for constant, close GC battles persisting until late in a Grand Tour: of course we’d all prefer that, but it’s unlikely, so we should enjoy all of other things being served up.

   I thought this year’s Tour was very good and the above highlights were a nice reminder (I just re-watched the finale of stage 1… I really didn’t think they’d stay away and was delighted to be wrong!). Maybe my only complaint is that UAE often killed any breakaway chances, so we didn’t often get the 2-for-1 stage+GC dynamic playing out.

   • I for one don’t hope a GT to be on the wire on the very last stage or couple of stages. If that’s the final result, it corresponds more often than not to a dull race with few events and/or conservative racing, plus it can finally feel very unsatisfactory, as in: the necessarily random events of a single stage impacting on a general result which should instead mirror 3-week superiority through a broad range of circumstances.

     Yes, of course, you can get to that final tight balance after a story of big reversals of form and fortune, that is a GC where there are significant swinging time gaps, only they end up compensating each other closely, eventually producing at the end of the 3rd week a modest or relatively modest gap which can be turned around by whomever of the top competitors, hence making any winner satisfactory and worthy.

     Recent years had several examples of both situations, the 2022-2023 Giri being probably the worst case situation whereas the 2022 TDF was a positive scenario of this kind. On a middle ground you could find the 2020 Giro and Tour when an extremely dull race was salvaged by a big final boom (or two, at the Giro). That same year a close Vuelta was maybe the best GT, yet way inferior to both 2019 and 2021 Vueltas, where the final winner was already clear before the very last hard stages.

     Statistically speaking, when GC is close after 3 weeks, the former and duller situation is by far more common. So, I prefer hard and deep racing, no matter when things get finally set, once you’ve had at least 5-6 big days.

   • @WillC
     Just in case it wasn’t clear…
     (which is the case, I’m afraid ^___^)

     …I *agree* with the tone, content and intent of your above post, just expanding on what you already highlighted in the first couple of paragraphs.

     • @gabriele your thoughts (and innate knowledge/memory of previous GTs) are always appreciated!

       I suppose my point was that cycling fans often seem disappointed when the GC battle seems settled, especially if mid-way through the race. But this happens more often than not (I think?), so the expectation is unrealistic.

   • 2023 was close at the end but little had happened until then. The thing to hope for is a wide field of contenders which gets refined over time, the overall lead changing several times and surprises. It’s why the 1964 and 1989 Tours are held up high for example. But the history lesson of this is that it’s rare and ironically the more we expect a Pogačar-Vingegaard duel the more this just says from the start it’s only down to two riders which is limiting. To reprise 1989 again nobody really seemed to have a favourite pick for the race at the start, among those that did it was more Delgado or Mottet rather than Fignon and LeMond.

     If people can find it and spare some time – with it playing in the background – rewatching all of Stage 1 is good, there’s a lot going on with the racing, scenery, crowds etc.

     • …so to spice things up we need Pogacar to emulate Delgado and miss his start time in an opening TT? I hope Christian Prudhomme takes note ; )

6. Absolutely, looking at the final stats you think “oh, it was a wash, boring Tour, Tadej dominated…” but not at all, extremely exciting race.

   Great coverage by Inrng and amazing (and sometimes contentious) daily debate on this blog.

   Once again, great year Inrng.

7. @Thomas Krogh

   The issue is precisely *not watching the individual performance in isolation*, but along with all the results on the day. Then you have a distribution of, say, time differences not only between the 1st and the 2nd placed, but also to the rest of the best performing athletes, and among them all. That’s what makes that day very peculiar, compared with lots of famous examples in the long history of the sport. This kind of comparison is able to reduce most variables as they co-vary through time.

   That said (what follows is an accessory argument, anyway, but just to answer you), Vingegaard is a very solid TT man, only not one in the position of ripping the whole field apart including a couple of very top specialists (and by far).

   To better understand the proportion, just have a look at the historical names he gets mixed with when checking the biggest differences achieved in a TT.
   Those who happen to do things like those, with such a percentage difference, are frequent TT winners with a record of dominating the specialty, even.

   Vingo, when performing good (I’m not even taking into account the very low ranking results when he was young, not prepared, not committed etc.), looks more often than not a good top-10 men, even a frequent top-3 when on a favourable course and a good day. Which is exceptional, given his low weight. But although relatively exceptional, and a powerful weapon when combined with his climbing strength, still in ITTs as such, taken separately – even lower-speed ones (with climbs) – he looks generally extremely strong but far from being two full steps above the rest. He’s on par with the best, or nearly so, but not the kind of athlete which is so constantly on the peak of the category that one day he can jump up to the clouds and find himself well over the top.
   It’s like you say, “can you imagine Cadel Evans winning a TDF one day? Heck, yes! But can you imagine him winning by 8 minutes? Frankly, no”.

   The “choosy” theory doesn’t hold much in recent seasons. He surely was going for the Tirreno 2024, and in that ITT he lost 22″ to rival Ayuso. It’s not like he then won the GC, as he did, by a huge margin, 1’24” on Ayuso himself. Thinking that he was holding himself back is a bit absurd. Same for the Tour de Pologne this year. Obviously, he wanted to win, as he did, again. It would have made no sense “to hold back” in a favourable partly uphill ITT. In fact, he was, well, 2nd. Now check the level of the rivals and their time differences to Vingegaard. And I could go on.

   There’s a huge amount of results confirming the relative position of Vingegaard within the category, at least for now. One can imagine different excuses each time, barring the 3 or 4 which are useful. Not in perfect form. Not committed. Whatever. But things like those happen to the rest of riders, too. A “choosy” attitude can skew part of the data, but not the whole mass. To start with because such a superiority as the one expressed in Combloux would mean gathering victories even without seriously trying, only by a lesser margin.

   The point is not “Vingo isn’t a good TTer”, it’s more “a good TTer suddenly made something belonging to the Anquetil / Indurain / Armstrong / Ullrich category”.

   Contador was a notable TTer, who on his best days and a proper route good beat Wiggins, Cancellara, Menchov, Dowsett etc. He podiumed nearly 40 ITTs in his career and won some 15.
   Some of Vingo’s ITT performance are surely in the Contador category, mostly at the TDF of course (seldom elsewhere, even when fighting for GC, but that’s a different story).
   But Contador never came even close to such a performance as Combloux.
   At Annecy, one of his most impressive performance ever, in 2009, one of his best version and at the TDF, 30 athletes stayed within the 5% margin, which is the difference between 1st and 2nd in Combloux. 10th place at Annecy was 2.1% behind Contador, in Combloux it was 10% back, which would have placed you in 100th place in Annecy.
   Let’s try a different perspective, Ponferrada at the Vuelta a Castilla y León, against a very poor field. 2nd place was 2.4% back, 5% was worth a 4th place, 10% a 28th place. Rivals were from Continental teams, two categories down!

   Finally, now let’s check Vingo at Combloux against the best Vingo in TTs. Gran Camiño 2023, modest field, 2nd place is at 2.5%, 5% is worth a 6th place, 10% is worth 29th place. Tour 2022 st. 20, 5% is 15 places behind Vingo (who’s 2nd to Wout), 10% is 60 places down. Dauphiné, beaten by Bjerg, Jonas going for GC. 5% places you 29 places below Vingo, 10% 76 places below.
   Nice ITT 2024, an impressive TDF ITT. From Vingegaard, -5% is 12 places down, -10% is 50 places down.
   Pogacar had Vingo (2nd) 2.3% back, Almeida was 5th at 5% back from Pogi, 10th place was 6.4% back and 10% slower meant being 27th.

   Remember again, at Combloux the 2nd place Pogi was 5% behind and 10% was worth a top-10!

   It’s not like Vingo doesn’t commit but finally at Combloux he did. It’s like throwing in a performance which is twice more impacting than his best ones when he no doubt was fully committed. Or we should admit that he went hard *one single time* in his whole career… Combloux. That would mean being veeeeeeery choosy, for sure.

   As I said many time, due to a series of cognitive effects, people just don’t have the full perception of the magnitude of that Combloux performance.

8. Gabriele,

   Thanks! I’ll read it in detail and comment fully later. 🙂

9. Gabriele,

   I think you underestimate Vingegaard’s TTs. Yes, they come in a very broad range, but looking at the ones where he really focused – the 7 TTs in TdF since his debut in 2021 – they show a quite consistent picture.

   Worst is 7th in the short (and wet) start in Copehagen, but the remaining 6 – including the two in his not-quite-restituted 2024 version – are all top-4. Even on the flat routes in 2021, he managed 3rd spot on both. Combloux (or Dormancy if you wish) ’23 is by far the one that both suited him best, and where his preparations were most focused. So him winning there can hardly be a surprise in any way.

   Now, you can then argue that the winning margin was bigger than expected, and I’m open to that point but this may have been skewed by the fact that Pogacar was not quite at his best. If they – V+P – had come in at the same(-ish) time, would it then have stood out? I doubt it.

10. “…even a frequent top-3 when on a favourable course and a good day”.

    “Contador was a notable TTer, who on his best days and a proper route good beat Wiggins, Cancellara, Menchov, Dowsett etc. He podiumed nearly 40 ITTs in his career and won some 15.
    Some of Vingo’s ITT performance are surely in the Contador category, mostly at the TDF of course”.

    I acknowledge pretty much Vingo’s skills, I think.

    The point I insisted on above is that Vingo is obviously good, but he needs three steps *above his own best record at the TDF* to reach Combloux level: 1) winning, 2) winning by a big margin, 3) winning by one of the most devastating margin in the whole history of ITTs, not only on 2nd and 3rd placed but on pretty much any distribution metrics.

    A very. Long. Stretch.

    You can take Pogacar away from the equation, even raising him up. The situation is still an anomaly when compared to the whole distribution pyramid (which is why I included other performance/time checks). It’s a big anomaly against any other ITT by Vingo himself at the TDF or against anyone anywhere.

    In cycling for several reasons and unlike, say, track & field, we tend not to perceive the performance relevance of a given huge winning margin compared to simply winning.

    For instance.

    Imagine Casasola winning this winter a big CX race against Van Empel, Brand and Alvarado. Ok, she maybe can do that. But, wait, she goes solo with two or three laps to go. Fine. This time every lap her advantage grows by, say, 40 secs on Van Empel whom she eventually beats by 2 minutes, Brand makes the podium at 3 minutes along with Alvarado at 3’30” while 10th placed Sanne Cant is two full laps back.

    Or imagine Bisseger winning a flat relatively short straight 30 km ITT of those he likes on, say, Ganna and Evenepoel. It can happen, I believe it actually happened sometime. Now have him winning by 45″ on 2nd placed Evenepoel and one minute on Ganna. A bit harder, I should check if he ever could do anything like that, sure not on Remco and Filippo, whatever their form. Wait, I need to imagine him winning by a double margin, say 1’38” on 2nd placed Evenepoel and 2’51” on 3rd placed Ganna. 10th placed is Küng over 3’30” back. No need to check, it never happened, and if it did I’d be left s scratching my head…

    • Gabriele,

      “…even a frequent top-3 when on a favourable course and a good day”.

      So the flat TTs in TdF ’21 were “favorable” for him? Seriously?

      • It’s a generalisation which means “in the conditions to peak his performance”. Anyway, they weren’t surely the fastest ITTs seen at the TDF, as you can notice from the speeds. And it doesn’t change anything for the flying triple axel he picked from a hat in Combloux.
        Again, the question is the unprecedented difference distribution… checked against any of *his* best results, too.
        That’s why although one could call “suspicious” many things seen at Jumbo Visma (as in UAE this yeat), nebertheless I’m not that much interested.
        This is interesting because it’s very special as it rockets out any meaningful frame.
        And all we’ve been told is “I watched the numbers on screen and couldn’t believe”. Yep.
        -___-
        By the way, 2024 you sort of discount, was actually Vingo’s best form ever in performance terms, according to team. He could do even better without the crash? Surely!, yet 2024 ITTs, if we trust these declarations, are an excellent test of what he could really do *in the past*, and on the “up” side. And still…

        Enough said!

        • Gabriele,

          What you are saying makes less and less sense, so lets just stop.

          Have a nice day.

          • Thomas, here’s what you need to know:

            Pogi is a god and JV is not
            RCS can do no wrong
            Adam Hansen is a charlatan

            Now you know what to avoid when debating Gab!😝

          • @Craig
            1) Well, that’s pretty objective, I’d say, at least cycling-wise. And imagine he isn’t even my top fav. The above shouldn’t prevent Vingo from becoming one of the greats.
            2) absolutely false, probably quite the opposite actually.
            3) just a «yellow union» leader, and, as the Ancients said, «shoemaker, stick to making shoes»

          • The Other Craig,

            Well, I didn’t really come a V vs P fight, and I rather respect P on his own. But Gabriele’s “analysis” of V’s TTs makes absolutely no sense other that some barely contained hate so I’ll just skip Gabriele’s posts in the future. The rest of the lineup seems to be intelligent enough.

11. @Thomas

    gabriele is ok, but you have to understand he considers Pog to be the second coming of Merckx and Christ in one person. I’ve tried to follow his twisted lines of thought there and they make little sense, but beside that some of his observations are sound.

    • Gabriele is great! But if he is going to write a doctoral dissertation on a cycling blog, he’s going to get some stick. He’s good humored about it, which I respect greatly even if we disagree.

    • Pog is quite clearly the second-coming of Merckx according to most people in and around the sport, I’d say. Ask ChatGPT if you have any doubt.

      OTOH, the comparison with Christ is not quite as much as adequate, given that His second coming in cycling is obviously enough… Pantani.
      Just check that famous victory photo.
      Pantani only needed to die a number of weeks before than he did to make the parallel as perfect as it could get, but it’s still good enough over a broad range of premises and context details.

      But I think we can happily wait for Highlight of the Season number III, now.

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