Tadej Pogacar, who knocked out the Tour de France in the Pyrenees, leads to suspicions within the peloton. Several personalities are starting to publicly issue doubts about the probity of Slovenian and his team.
It is, like almost every year, the same music. After three Pyrenean stages crushed by Tadej Pogacar, winner hands down at Hautacam and Peyragudes, before controlling in Superbagnères, the Slovenian has 04’13 ahead of his runner Jonas Vingegaard at the end of the second week and definitively extinguished the suspense of the Tour de France 2025: the suspicions on his probity are relaunched.
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They don’t come from nowhere. The available data, which highlight the power developed in ascents as well as the time made, do not lie. And the yellow jersey was, for example, was close to breaking the Bjarne Riis record in Hautacam, made in 1996 while it was doped. In the peloton, the languages are delighted: “If he wanted to break the record of Bjarne Riis in Hautacam, he took it, he got up in the last two kilometers” is convinced a team manager quoted under the cover of anonymity by West France.
“An extraterrestrial”
The words remain measured, but as a subtext, the suspicions are there about a runner who crushes the bicycle like almost no other before him, who “is going beyond all cracks”, from Merckx to Hinault, according to Cédric Vasseur, manager of Cofidis cited by RMC. In the world of cycling, all dominations have always arrested. “I think that it is up to the authorities to guarantee that everything is done to guarantee the authenticity of performance. We do not see a reason for Pogacar to be different from a runner from another team. He is controlled. I hope obviously that we will not learn anything negative on this subject but given his regularity and his consistency at this level, we are simply on an extraordinary man, he points out.
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“Today, the instances are embarrassed, they do not know how to do it. With money, you can have your own laboratory,” said another manager.
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Former runners, who knew the time of doping, including the Dictators Lance Armstrong in the 2000s, also testified, recalling the dark memories of the time when the American and his team crushed everything in their path. “We haven’t seen that since my time. Pogacar was sure of him,” said Sandy Casar, embarrassed by the attacks at the foot of the Slovenian ascents, as in Hautacam.