Stage 11. #TDF2024 What did we learn today? - What a day in Massif Central! Jonas got a huge moral boost today - @TeamEmiratesUAE keeps messing up @TamauPogi fuelling. They could have sealed the Tour today but played it into the hands of @vismaleaseabike - Even Pogacar can…
"Even a Ferrari can't run without fuel" - Michael Rasmussen lays into UAE Team Emirates after Tadej Pogacar's fuelling mishap at Tour de France
CyclingFriday, 12 July 2024 at 09:21
Whilst Tadej Pogacar starts stage 12 of the 2024 Tour de France actually with a bigger lead than he had before stage 11, his aura of being the Maillot Jaune winner in waiting seems significantly diminished following Jonas Vingegaard's incredible performance and stage win.
There was a curious moment relatively late on stage 11, when Pogacar, who was solo at the head of the race, pulled over to the neutral service vehicle asking for a gel. Four time Tour de France stage winner and two time King of the Mountains, Michael Rasmussen was watching the action unfold, and via his official X (Twitter) account, the Dane laid some heavy criticism at the foot of UAE Team Emirates' door.
"Pogacar is low on sugars. It always a problem if you have to ask the neutral service for a bottle. Huge mistake from UAE. They could have sealed the Tour today," Rasmussen writes. "I wonder when UAE are getting their fueling right. It gives flash backs to the Galibier-Granon stage in 2022 where Pogacar also completely bonked 20 min. from the finish line."
Whilst Pogacar didn't lose any time to Vingegaard on the road, the Slovenian was somewhat surprisingly beaten by his great rival in a two-up sprint for the stage win. "Even a Ferrari can't run without fuel. When do they learn it at UAE?" Rasmussen questions. "Even Pogacar can pedal squares in a sprint."
As mentioned, Pogacar actually managed to increase his lead in the general classification over Remco Evenepoel, who remains in 2nd. But with the recovering Vingegaard now beginning to find his groove, has momentum switched into the favour of the reigning, two time Tour de France winning leader of Team Visma | Lease a Bike? Time will tell over the next couple of weeks, but Tadej Pogacar now longer looks the near certain winner of the Maillot Jaune he did a few days ago.
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- They (USA Cycling) raised their permit fee from from $95 to $125 and the minimum insurance charge went from $300 to $400.JoeyB20-12-2024
- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024