Le Tour 2024

It all blew apart one or two stages from the end, when he just had no energy left. He had overdone his efforts over the 3 weeks and lost the race. Possibly Froome inherited the win, after a very long distance break for the finish put the final straw that broke the effort of Yates.

Possible a similar occurrence may befall Pogacar, unlikely yet possible.

Measuring Haemoglobin via the Carbon Monoxide breathing method has hit the papers this morning. 

What is it?

Visma Lease A Bike measure at the start and end of an altitude training block to see how the red blood cell count has improved, the purpose of altitude training it seems. With the blood levels amongst other things measured on the medical passport, the implication of doping effects would seem slim. 

Most other teams do it, although Jonathan Vaughters, head of the UNO X team, says they’d never use it.

However, Pogacar and Vingegaard produced their best ever output numbers in the last climb prior to the rest day and beat the previous record for the ascent set by Marco Pantani in the late 90s. 

No one ever puts a time factor on the technological advances that have gone into the bikes and the kit worn by the riders plus the nutrition. I think they should as it would add a huge amount more context.

More to be revealed in the coming days, no doubt.

Here’s hoping for more drama on the course. 

(That's sport - iirc, one of Vingegaard's wins came against a Pogi who had also been injured (or had been ill?) shortly before the tour. It's a fascinating rivalry. 

(Hats off to Campenaerts for his win and heart-on-sleeve 'interview' (mainly weeping!) after his win the other day... his team left him hanging for a contract, so the stress must have been huge. (He got signed by another bunch.) Seeing him speechless as he held his mobile with his partner and baby on the screen was priceless, and moving.

         

What nonsense! If he had extreme fatigue, he would not have won the last stage.

The real reason might be that his other half has not been selected by the Slovenians so they can’t have a love-in 2 weeks in the Olympic Village.

Apparently, no one understands why Pog’s other half has been excluded from the Slovenian selection. She won their road race by 11 mins.

The Slovene federation either want to make some sort of point; or that there’s been a falling out between one or both of them; or there’s some other reason that we’d prefer not to be the case.

Also, before your heart bleeds too much for Pog, his salary is doubling for next year to €12,000,000.

That is some budgetary power from UAE

The simple truth is that Pogecar, at 25, is in a position to make those sort of decisions as he is on track to become one of, if not, the greatest bike riders of all time. I would introduce a word of caution around that comment. I remember some years ago when I used to "play" a lot of golf having a discussion with a number of fellow golfers about Tiger Woods, who at that time was winning majors for fun and closing in on the record of Jack Nicklaus. My belief was that he wouldn't get there for some reason & look how that worked out. 

Saw only the bits on the News/Round Up of the Day. His move to get the lead was great opportunism, nothing more than a 50:50 chance that he seized.

Glad he got some recompense for his efforts this summer, unlike others in Ineos.