Have they all more or less given up?

‘I don’t know whether disillusionment is exactly the right word, but it is the first word that comes to mind,’ said Lidl-Trek’s Sam Oomen the other day, when describing what it’s like trying to keep up with Pogacar – never mind stopping him from winning.

Speaking about Tadej Pogačar’s performance at the Tour de Suisse, he said:

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

And, yeah, fair enough, I felt the same way as I sat watching Stage 1.

Oomen is not some bloke on Facebook typing in all caps from behind a profile photo of a 1998 Trek. He’s a WorldTour rider, he was in the race, he knows what WTF looks like, and he knows what it feels like when someone rides so hard that your own best effort suddenly feels a bit pointless.

The pace set by the Slovenian, he said, was simply “ridiculous”.

Despite having spent a month away from competition, the world champion attacked during the opening stage with more than 70km remaining. His advantage quickly grew into minutes, leaving at least one rider (Oomen!) further down the road struggling to understand what they had witnessed.

Oomen said UAE and Pogačar were operating at a level that was difficult to comprehend.

“One team, and one rider in particular, was so far above everyone else that it was difficult to comprehend how fast he was riding.”

He added:

“You are doing everything you possibly can yourself, but the difference is still enormous. I don’t know whether disillusionment is exactly the right word, but it is the first word that comes to mind.”

Woof: disillusionment.

Now, all of these words, well, they aren’t really supposed to say, are they?

Disillusionment.

Difficult to comprehend.

Never experienced anything like it.

Ridiculous.

The kind of words that you imagine are up on a whiteboard inside commentary booths at the Tour de France, under the ‘DO NOT SAY’ heading.

One comment online suggested that Oomen’s comments are not coming from ‘a place of suspicion’ but more from a sense of awe – yet they are quite possibly not the kind of comments that the UAE team’s management and marketing crew will be too pleased about. In the old days, they would have been enough to piss off more than just a few in the peloton.

As we know only too well, in this sport’s past, the extraordinary and the unbvelievable have quite often been fuelled by more than a bucket full of the ol’ grinta.

No one is directly saying – not me nor Oomen – that Pogacar is doping – yet, it would be remiss to not mention the doped up history of almost every other legend that has pushed a pedal. The same goes for the fact that the UAE team is run by a man who has more than a few doubts hanging over his head with regards to cleanliness.

Mauro Gianetti has a career marked by severe doping controversies, beginning with a 1998 incident where he spent 10 to 12 days in a coma following a near-fatal collapse. While officially attributed to a respiratory infection, treating doctors suspected the use of a dangerous artificial blood substitute (PFC). This led to a 2002 investigation that was dismissed following aggressive legal action by Gianetti against the involved doctors, according to Escape Collective and Wikipedia.

Transitioning to management, Gianetti’s teams became associated with major scandals, most notably in 2008 when Saunier Duval riders Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli were caught doping with CERA, resulting in the team’s withdrawal from the Tour de France and heavy criticism from organizers. Despite this, along with other riders under his management facing bans, Gianetti remains a powerful figure in modern cycling.

But yes they say, this doesn’t mean anyone on his current team is doping but, I mean, why bother with him? Why risk the bad look and the seepage of doubt over to his charges?

Ant then there is th e curious case of Marc Soler, UAE pro, who in 2023 was investigated after meetings involving his father Jaume Soler, and José “Pepe” Martí.

Martí is not just a vaguely controversial old cycling character: he received a 15-year ban for his role in the US Postal/Lance Armstrong doping operation, where he was associated with transporting prohibited substances and facilitating the programme.

The explanation offered for the meeting was that Martí was there to carry out lactate testing for Soler’s father, a 50-plus amateur triathlete. Thijs Zonneveld, established journalist, has challenged that version publicly, asking why anyone would seek such routine testing from a person barred from working with athletes. He believes Marc Soler was likely the intended subject of the meeting, while acknowledging that this has not been proven. That is Zonneveld’s reading of the circumstances — not a finding by an anti-doping authority, and not evidence in itself that Soler committed an anti-doping violation.

Interestingly, Jaume Soler was reportedly given an 18-month ban, while Marc Soler has received no announced sanction and denies wrongdoing. Read more on this messy little episode here.

It is important to note all this, because this stuff is true – Gianetti has a big old past and is the head honcho of Pogi’s team, and Soler’s dad did get busted for get a ban for ‘working’ with a banned trainer – so it cannot be ignored. We all know what happened in the past when other stuff like this was ignored then also.

We should be mindful because cycling spent decades lying through its teeth.

The sport has had its EPO years, its blood bags in hotel rooms, its doctors with too much influence, its I never failed a test defences and its endless parade of performances that were later revealed to have had rather more assistance than a good massage and a pair of new socks.

So when Jean-Michel Menthéour says doubt is a form of “mental hygiene”, you – ok, I – can see his point.

“In cycling, admiration should never erase critical thinking,” he posted on IG earlier this year, adding that the more extreme a performance looks, the more it should invite questions, not insults or wild theories, but simple, necessary doubt.

Menthéour is a former professional whose career ended at age 24. He published a 1999 book, Secret Défonce, detailing the toxic, systematized doping culture he encountered in 90s professional cycling and confessing to his own drug use (including EPO and amphetamines).

He has not produced evidence that Pogačar has doped. Neither has anyone else. There is no positive test, no anti-doping case and no public proof of wrongdoing against Pogačar.

Nor, we should mention, has anyone else, not Del Toro, nor Vingegaard, nor VDP etc.

On the flip side, many experienced people feel that there really is nothing to bother ourselves with.

Michael Mørkøv and others have made the point that questions will always exist in cycling, but extraordinary riders also exist. Pogačar is not just putting in one freakish climb every now and then. He can win a monument, time trial like a specialist, attack from 70km out and win, descend brilliantly, then turn up at a Grand Tour and do it all again.

Jonathan Vaughters has also pointed out that modern racing is different. It is more aggressive, less controlled and more chaotic. Better nutrition, better equipment, better training, better data, better everything. Riders are tested more than ever too, with biological passports, out-of-competition testing and far more scrutiny than the bad old days.

That does not mean, however, that the system is perfect. But this line of thinking can lend itself to suggesting that any doubts, anyone saying ‘Er, hang on a sec, might this be too good to be true?‘ – is lazy, or downright vindictive.

Very often, anyone piping is up is labeled as an armchair idiot or a former pro who is riddled with bitterness over a less than stellar career – it is already happening to Oomen.

So what are we supposed to think?

Probably two things at once.

First: Pogačar is doing things that are genuinely astonishing. Oomen’s comments are fascinating because they come from inside the peloton, from a rider who knows exactly how hard everyone else is going. When he says he has never seen anything like it, that means something.

Second: there is still no evidence that Pogačar is cheating.

Those two things can exist together.

Third: His management team are a little tainted, and one of his current teammates’ Dad gets his ‘lactate advice’ from a man who the Court of Arbitration for Sport found that, between 1997 and 2007, along with Johan Bruyneel and team doctor Pedro Celaya, was involved in an “elaborate and highly successful” systematic doping scheme – the same dude whose sanction was increased to 15 years, running until 2027.

These three things can exist – hmm… ok well let’s just say, this part i particular it ain’t a great look.

Point is, we can be amazed in a really good way – and, we can be suspicious in an intelligent and informed manner too, because cycling taught us to be suspicious. We can demand better transparency, tougher testing and more independent scrutiny – and we can still enjoy watching the most exciting rider of his generation race his bike like someone who really needs to get home real quick or his Mum will whup his backside again.

Pogačar looks every inch a once-in-a-generation rider.

He may be THE once-in-all-generations rider.

Either way, Sam Oomen, he has said some stuff, that’s for sure…