Nils Politt on Tadej Pogacar and UAE's 'blacklist': "You don’t want to be on that list"
Cycling
Nils Politt recently went on a podcast and has given a lot of insight on Tadej Pogacar and UAE Team Emirates' Tour de France. A lot of interesting statements were issued by the German but alongside them some that some riders many not be so fond of, which is that the team has a blacklist of riders who are not friends of the team.
"Tadej and Remco like each other, both on and off the bike. They are friends, which isn’t the case with Vingegaard. Tadej and Jonas respect each other but don’t necessarily like each other," Politt said in the Schlag & Fertig podcast. "In the peloton, you have friends and riders you’re not so fond of. On our team bus, there’s also a list of riders who are friends and a blacklist. You don’t want to be on that list". Although this won't necessarily explain some of UAE's tactics during the Tour, it hints at the existence of personal reasons to chase down breakaways.
Often during the Tour, riders of other teams were often frustrated at the lack of opportunities to win and specially lack of freedom given to breakaways - something that is now more common during the year as well. The Slovenian ended up winning six stages. After winning both summit finishes in the Pyrenees ambitions to win stages were not as sharp to win stages. The German says that on stage 20 there was even an attempt to give freedom to other riders: "We had prepared for that stage very intensively. The team wanted to win there, but Tadej said in the morning on the bus: 'We’ve already won four stages. If we win this one too, they’re going to get angry with us.'"
In the end the breakaway was controlled and a GC battle ensured on the final climb. Jonas Vingegaard attacked the climb hard, but Pogacar didn't give any favours to the Dane. "I told him that if you can win a stage, you should just do it. Tadej hesitated, so we sent Marc Soler ahead. But Evenepoel’s team closed it down. I genuinely think Tadej would have let him win if they had been ahead together, but there’s no mercy for Vingegaard".
"With Tadej, you can’t come up with a strategy. You devise a plan, but on the bike, he wants you to go even faster," Politt says. "But you can’t go any faster. 'Four minutes, give it everything you’ve got!' But the others in your wheel still have to keep going, you know. Fortunately, I’ve also managed to slow him down a few times." However no-one could slow him down on Plateau de Beille where he gained meaningful time on his rivals but above all set power numbers that were previously unseen in pro cycling, according to estimations (which also saw Vingegaard and even Remco Evenepoel do career-best efforts):
"That Tadej went minutes faster than Pantani, you can’t really compare that anymore. Our bikes are now 6.8 kilos, back then they were 9 kilos. All our equipment is tested to ensure it’s the fastest: helmets, socks, base layers... That wasn’t the case before;" Politt argues. "People don’t realize what we do for it and that what happened in the past is really no longer possible. We have to be available for doping checks literally all day long, and in the Tour, Tadej was tested every day and sometimes even twice a day. They would come into the bus before a stage, where he had to provide a sample. An intrusion into privacy. But the questions are part of it, and we know that too."
Politt also commented on former teammate Primoz Roglic who had to abandon the race due to another crash. Politt was not surprised at the outcome of the Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe's leader: "He’s ridden the Tour six times and has crashed out three times. His crashes are, of course, widely covered, and there wasn’t much he could do about this one in the Tour. But there are crashes of his that make us all wonder what he’s doing. In that second week, 160 riders passed through that corner without any issues, and he crashes".
Pog and Remco are uneasy and a bit ugly to Vingo as they don't get him... They were both intl sporting superstars in their teens, pampered, praised. V is working class, busted his ass while packing fish, and kisses his wife and baby first before celebrating. Their bromance in disrespecting Vingo was not too cool. All 3 are great riders. Vingo's performance 2 months after ICU 2 weeks was the story of the Tour -- beating Pog on 2up sprint? and Remco says 'no balls'. Pog dominant, but everything was perfect this season, he didn't even have to exhaust himself in Giro with no competition and by far best team, and best team by far in Tour. Visma lost 3 of their tour team in the 3 weeks before the tour, and WVA was still recovering -- but managed 2nds and 3rd in sprints, just couldn't climb. If Visma has the luck next year I bet on Vingo, although Remco's Olympics may be taking him to next level, and his team investing in proper Tour team.
If Remco were in a breakaway this year, UAE would have definitely chased him😂 Pogi/UAE didn't have to chase after attacks from Remco. Whenever Remco attacked, Remco was attacking Jonas while they were both behind Pogi. Jonas attacked Pogi while they were together but Pogi dealt with most of those attacks by himself. Remco was never able to attack Pogi. That may not be true next season but that's what happened this year.
This is a cover up of the actual truth. UCI/ASO will never intrude in private moments. All riders have specific check periods where they give a doping sample (pee). It's a common psychological strategy to exaggerate a made-up scenario in an attempt to give oneself integrity. The truth UAE don't want to disclose is that, not only are they built on a foundation of former dopers and cycling cheaters, why it's highly likely they use their nearly unlimited oil money to bribe cycling authority to get away with illegal conduct. It's an open secret that any rider who went to UAE immediately got an unreasonable physical boost, which can't be explained with just "better training" than other cycling organizations. Whatever they do, it's not done with morality and legal means. From an objective standpoint, doping will always be a step ahead of anti-doping. Even if the whole of UCi/ASO isn't corrupt, as soon as anti-doping is capable of detection newly developed drug usage, they will be alerted, stop using it, and move on to the next drug UAE has in their pipeline. Moreover, it's been proven possible to completely insolate mechanical motors and other equipment, making contemporary detection equipment inadequate. This makes it possible for UAE to invest millions into developing hidden virtual undetectable mechanical doping into their bikes, further giving them a 50-100W boost when deployed, for a certain period, and enabling Pogacar to do attacks with inhuman watt numbers. If you're cheering for UAE, you're cheering for oil money, corruption, liers and cheaters.
> This makes it possible for UAE to invest millions into developing hidden virtual undetectable mechanical doping into their bikes, further giving them a 50-100W boost when deployed :-) Let's not forget about illegal injections with Alien DNA collected from crashed UFO in Roswell!
They really don't have to bribe anyone. They're taking the tests like everyone else and testing negative like all the other dopers. There are still too many PEDs(there always will be new ones) that won't show up on tests for them to need to buy anyone off.
Anytime someone leads with "the actual truth" your B.S.detector should go crazy loud.Nobody knows what UAE's shtick is in regards to training and nutrition.When you have some proof I would like to be the first to know.I will enjoy Pogacars exploits until such time.
👏👏👏 What happens now withbthis team seems to me like the biggest lie in cycling history. Figuers like Mauro Gianetti laughing in our face talking about new training strategy. And now I am hearing about Pogačar foundation for kids. They are walking in the footsteps of a previous, unbeatable cycling star. The sport is full of shit unfortunately. And the authorities? Who caught Lance? Americans, not UCI or ASO. If not for Tygard, nothing would have happened. For years Lance could dope and getting away easily. Not only him, the WHOLE TEAM. People, who think he was so clever and wasn't detected are naive. They have been eating all of the pharmacy supply. Such amounts of drugs are detectable nearly at a distance of 2 meters, not only in blood or urine 😉.
Poor Nils, suddenly a great climber in the Tour. Playing the world's smallest violin.
They're still subject to random tests when not racing. They know what to take and will test negative anyway.
There are no simple fomulas in sport, and I don't mean to suggest otherwise. But in their quest to match TJV/TVL, it has always looked like UAE simply bought up all the best climibing talent they could find and threw them at the peloton. That contrasts with TJV/TVL, who has built a team more methodically and with more of an eye towards "fit" than mere "fitness." Comments like this from Politt suggest that UAE has been less concerned with culture and more with sheer firepower, which of course looks great when you have the best rider in the field. Whether it can be held together for a period of years remains to be seen, although Pog will continue winning no matter how Ayuso, Almeida, and everyone feels about it.
I had thoughts similar to your as the Tour progressed. For all their power, UAE looked like they had no idea how to use it. For past Visma teams (or Sky before them) they had a pretty logical progression of riders do do pacemaking. UAE was just had this skattershot approach sometimes and Pogi never really wanted to wait for them anyway. Which is fine when Pogi has a clear advantage, but what will he do the next time he meets a full strength Visma squad and he is maybe not quite as dominant? He has shown he is like a doorbell; yank his chain and he will react and chase. It also shows Pogi is a little petty or immature. Do you think Jonas won those two tours just to show up Pogi? No, Jonas just won them the way he could, but Pogi clearly took it personally for whatever reason. I don't think Pollit did UAE any favors by airing their dirty laundry.
Pog petty and immature ? Thats a hilarious take. He has a rivalry with Jonas and Visma plain and simple. Not everyone has to be buddy-buddy in the peloton.
If you don't know why Pogacar took two losses to heart than clearly you don't understand competitive psychology and motivation.
Risum multum poteris cognoscere stultum. People like this @mikolajj perceive themselves as very intelligent, they realize everything while the rest of the world is idiot or has wrong information. Actually they are poor souls, with deep inferiority complexes who need to belittle others in order to put up with the filth that they have inside (and most likely outside) .
Clearly you're a psychologist or a Pogačar groupie, and probably not the first thing really 😅.
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