It is obvious that something has changed in communication. When Pogacar outclassed the competition on its triumphal tour of the Alps two years ago, it sounded much shorter. Last year, Vingegaard’s team-mate Wout Van Aert fumed indignantly when he was asked to say something about the sheer superhuman performance. But now the strategists at Jumbo and UAE have apparently decided to present themselves differently. Skepticism? Full understanding! And Vingegaard is concerned in his short presentation to include another thought as to why one should believe them: “The diet, the material, the training. Everything has changed.”
Yes, everything has changed. Or better: A lot – but not everything necessarily in such a way that it makes the rash on the warning scale go down. The tour stages are usually not as long as they used to be in the high doping era, but the tour as a whole is rather difficult. This year there are eight mountain stages in the course, a total of more than 55,000 meters in altitude. And the sections between the mountain stages are no longer really transfer stages, where in the times of Armstrong, Ullrich & Co. things were more comfortable for the favorites and the peloton let a breakaway group pull away. Now there is often immense action there, and it can happen that even Pogacar and Vingegaard attack on such a section. That’s refreshing for the course of the race, but even more difficult to survive.
In addition, not only the speed as such raises questions. There are also so many other parameters, such as the environment of the athletes. Pogacar’s UAE team in particular has a number of pre-stressed players working – led by Swiss team boss Mauro Gianetti. He was suspected of doping during his playing days, which he always denied. And as head of sport, he managed the scandal-ridden team Saunier Duval, in which there were various doping cases in the noughties. Gianetti’s reputation was so bad that even the tour boss Christian Prudhomme harshly judged: “The manager is a man with a bad reputation.”
