Tadej Pogačar’s power numbers are “mind boggling”, says Chris Froome; Cyclist photographs “things destroyed by drivers” on cycleway “not fit for purpose”; Dairy-free diet for Tour de France team; Olympic drama; Brutal Basque climb + more on the live blog

It’s strange to think that not that long ago, Chris Froome was the benchmark for staggering climbing times in grand tours.

But the times have certainly a-changed, and after Tadej Pogačar’s slew of record-breaking rides at this year’s Tour de France – which included destroying Marco Pantani’s Plateau de Beille time from 1998 by three and a half minutes, along with several other records set during cycling’s wild west EPO era – it’s clear that the goalposts have shifted significantly since Froome’s days as the sport’s dominant grand tour winner.

(ASO/Charly Lopez)

And that’s something even the four-time Tour winner acknowledged himself this week while speaking to Velo’s Shane Stokes at the Arctic Race of Norway, where the 39-year-old finished 89th on GC to continue his run of mid-bunch stage race placings this year.

“It’s incredible, absolutely incredible,” Froome, said of Pogačar’s performance at the Tour this year, where the rampant Slovenian took six stage victories, including every single high mountain stage, and beat Jonas Vingegaard by over six minutes on the way to his third career Tour title.

“If the numbers that are being reported coming out of the Tour de France are to be believed and correct, it is just mind boggling. I mean, an amazing, amazing, amazing performance.”

> Not so marginal losses: Chris Froome reveals recent bike set-up was “centimetres” apart from Team Sky days due to “oversight”

To put Froome’s comments into context – on Plateau de Beille last month, in what many, including Pogačar himself, rate as one of the greatest climbing performances cycling has ever seen, the UAE Team Emirates rider averaged a staggering power output of 7w/kg for just under 40 minutes on the 15.8km, 7.9 per cent Pyrenean brute.

And that was at the end of a 199km monster stage that featured four other first-category climbs before the HC denouement, and one that was raced hard from the gun.

By contrast, according to Team Sky – and you can take their claims with as much salt as you like – Froome averaged 6.1w/kg when he destroyed his rivals on La Pierre-Saint-Martin at the end of stage 10 of the 2015 Tour, putting 59 seconds into second-placed teammate Richie Porte and over a minute into everyone else, including Nairo Quintana.

(Alex Broadway/ASO/SWpix.com)

That was Froome at his summit finish-killing peak, and it’s important that while, at 15.2km and 7.4 per cent, the Pierre-Saint-Martin is similar to the Plateau de Beille, the Team Sky leader’s exploits came at the end of a stage which featured no other climbs before its mountain-top finale, and came almost an entire week earlier in the race than Pogačar’s Pirata-destroying ride.

Even Lance Armstrong and his old mucker Michele Ferrari used to bang on about the sacred number of 6.7w/kg that would almost certainly guarantee you the yellow jersey in Paris. Now, Pogačar is hitting the 7 mark, and most of the top five are outdoing three decades of seemingly insurmountable climbing performances.

But it’s not just the Slovenian’s sport-redefining performances at the Tour that impress Froome.

“Given what he’s been able to do in one day races and classics earlier on in the season, to still be able to carry that form through to the Giro and the Tour is just phenomenal,” the Israel-Premier Tech rider added. “He’s a phenomenal athlete. It’s been a pleasure to watch.”

(Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com)

Another notable difference between Froome and Pogačar is the age at which they reached the top of their sport.

The Slovenian won’t turn 26 until the end of the next month, but he’s already amassed 84 professional victories, including three Tours, a Giro, 17 Tour stages, three editions of Il Lombardia, two Liège-Bastogne-Liège wins, two Strade Bianches, a Tour of Flanders, six Giro stages, and a Paris-Nice.

By Froome’s 26th birthday, the British rider had yet to take his first pro win.

And Froome says that shift towards riders dominating at younger and younger ages (just look at double Olympic champion, monument, and grand tour winner Remco Evenepoel too, who’s still only 24) has been the biggest development he’s seen in cycling during his career.

> "Even Tadej Pogačar will have difficulty beating him": Eddy Merckx "completely in awe" of Remco Evenepoel, predicts "exceptional" Olympic champion will beat Tour winner at World Championships

(ASO/Charly Lopez)

“I think the availability of data has really changed the sport in the last decade. Young teenagers most probably have access to how professionals are training. We’re probably getting 13, 14-year-olds training like WorldTour riders,” Froome, whose palmares also includes two Vuelta a España overall wins and a Giro d’Italia, says.

“So by the time they turned professional at the age of 19, 20, 21, they’re ready to even go and win races like the Tour de France.

“It’s meant that across the board the levels is much higher. And altitude is definitely a factor as well. Everyone’s going to altitude now, whereas beforehand, certainly during the Team Sky days that I had, there were only a handful of teams going to altitude. Now it’s everyone’s going.”

(Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

But with success coming at such a young age, does Froome reckon Pogačar can maintain his momentum and keep breaking records, including the all-time Tour record of five wins, before he retires?

“Certainly,” Froome concludes. “I don’t think we can put a limit on that, given how he’s riding. I think at any record is vulnerable, given his age, and given how he’s riding right now.”

Decent cycling infrastructure is one thing. Cycling infrastructure constantly being destroyed by reckless, dangerous drivers is another entirely.

That’s the point being made by the aptly-named Twitter account ‘Cycleway, my arse!’, whose main goal online is highlighting what they regard as the second-rate nature of Transport for London’s Cycleway 1, and who this week posted the following photos “some of the things recently destroyed by drivers on TfL’s dreadful Cycleway 1 route”:

“When will Will Norman admit this route isn’t for purpose?” the account asked. “It’ll always be dominated by drivers.”

And terrible drivers, at that…

EF-Oatly-Cannondale will be hoping for stage wins courtesy of double Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner and Paris-Roubaix winner (and the peloton’s barbecue and dancing queen) Alison Jackson, but they’ll be doing so on a strictly milk and cheese-free diet.

While ditching the dairy may have something to do with their sponsor Oatly specialising in oat milk and other dairy alternatives, and the Tour de France Femmes being a handy advertising billboard for their products, the team’s nutritionist Anna Carceller says a traditional diet that includes dairy can hinder a rider’s recovery.

“If a rider is lactose intolerant, she can have very severe digestive problems, which disappear when lactose is removed from her diet,” Carceller says.

“During intense racing, some athletes have functional intolerances with complex molecules like lactose, developing negative symptoms that can impact their performance and overall wellness. Both of these are medical conditions that have to be addressed and managed properly. Eliminating dairy from a rider’s diet can often solve these problems.”

Carceller adds that at a gruelling stage race like the Tour, a rider’s ability to recover after the demands of each stage is key, and that cutting out dairy may also have anti-inflammatory benefits that can help riders recover faster, enabling them to meet the demands of tough stage after tough stage.

“A dairy-free diet is compatible with high performance,” the nutritionist says. “Food science has shown us that nutritional diversity can be met in a dairy-free diet, allowing an athlete to have an excellent diet while going dairy-free without problems.”

Team CEO Jonathan Vaughters added: “This is a nutrition strategy we’ve discussed over the years but have never before implemented. With Oatly coming on board as a partner, it finally makes sense to go dairy-free at certain races. In regards to nutrition, as well as flavour, we can give our riders what they need through Oatly products.”

If only Toon Aerts and Shari Bossuyt had adopted this new groundbreaking nutrition strategy, eh?

> Wake up to (anything but) milk: Pro cyclists warned not to eat or drink dairy products at cyclocross race after positive doping tests

Jack Carlin will hope to add another bronze to his Olympic individual sprint collection this evening, after the Paisley rider was knocked out in the semi-finals, losing two straight matches to the formidable Dutch powerhouse Harrie Lavreysen.

After Lavreysen took a comfortable first race lead, in a semi-final featuring the gold and silver medallists from the team sprint, Carlin hoped to make life difficult for the three-time Olympic champion, sailing up and down the bankings of the track in a bid to unsettle his rival.

 (Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

It wasn’t to be for Carlin, unfortunately, as reigning champion and pre-Games favourite Lavreysen powered his way past on the home straight to book his place in yet another Olympic final.

However, there is to be no repeat of the all-Dutch sprint final in Tokyo, after Lavreysen’s teammate Jeffrey Hoogland – who beat Hamish Turnbull in the quarters yesterday – was knocked out in just two races by Australian Matt Richardson, who will hope to cause an upset against another orange-clad rider to win his first ever Olympic title later this evening.

It’s been quite the start to this afternoon’s session at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome in Paris, as record after record fell during the qualifying round of the women’s individual sprint.

With Lea Friedrich’s Olympic record for the flying 200m of 10.31 seconds smashed halfway through the session – 10 riders would ultimately overtake that mark by the end of qualifying – the German then retaliated by setting a blistering new world record for the distance.

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

The 24-year-old’s time of 10.029 blew apart Kelsey Mitchell’s five-year-old record of 10.154 (which was also set at altitude), and brought the women’s flying 200 extremely close to the magical 10-second mark.

And, with something in the hot and humid air of the velodrome, three other riders, including GB’s Olympic team pursuit champions Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell, and last night’s keirin gold medallist Ellese Andrews, also beat Mitchell’s previous mark.

Looks like we’re going to have some competition on our hands.

As the women’s sprint qualifying gets underway in Paris this lunchtime, yesterday we reported that one of the riders competing in the event, Nigerian Ese Ukpeseraye, was forced to borrow a bike from the German team after being drafted into Nigeria’s track line-up at the last moment.

“Don’t be surprised that I’m competing in the track, in the sprint and keirin,” Ukpeseraye posted on Instagram yesterday confirming her late call-up, after her Canyon-Sram development team revealed that Germany had stepped up to loan her a bike to enable the 25-year-old, who took part in the road race last weekend, to compete on the track.

“It is what it is,” she said.

Ese Ukpeseraye racing on her borrowed bike in the keirin yesterday (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Following Ukpeseraye’s somewhat cryptic, frustrated post, Nigeria’s cycling fans rushed to condemn the country’s governing body, believing that they had failed to adequately prepare for the Olympics, leaving their representatives without the necessary equipment to race.

However, in the wake of this criticism, the country’s sports minister took to social media to “clarify” the situation, claiming that Nigeria were only granted a spot in the women’s sprint and keirin events two weeks ago after another nation had been disqualified – by which point the team, and their bikes and kits, had already left for Paris.

> “That’s the Olympic spirit”: German track team loan Nigerian rider bike after late call-up for sprint and keirin events

“My attention has been called to a post on social media by Ese Ukpeseraye,” Senator John Owan Enoh said in a statement. “After reading the post and some follow up comments I swung into action. Ese’s post seems to have been grossly misunderstood, perhaps also because it didn’t seem to give proper context to the matter in perspective. It is important I make some clarifications.

“Team Nigeria qualified for one road race in cycling and prepared for it in terms of training and the appropriate competition equipment. Team Nigeria was fully prepared for this road race until two weeks ago after the Cycling team with the rest of Team Nigeria had already left for the Olympics, that a communication from the UCI was received reallocating additional slots to Nigeria in the keirin and individual sprint.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Lovina Ukpeseraye (@eselovina)

“This reallocation to Nigeria was due to the disqualification of a country, leaving Nigeria as the next eligible to make the list of qualified countries to compete. Unfortunately, this additional slot required the use of a different competition equipment in terms of biking.

“For this track race reallocated to Team Nigeria, a very special equipment (approved specifically for the Olympic track game) is used. It’ll take months to have it delivered after ordering and making payment. To therefore get Ese to compete, the Federation through Ese’s club in Europe and working with a German owned company, got a ‘Track Bike’ for our cyclist Ese.”

The new Premier League season is fast approaching (I know, those two weeks without football on the TV were rough – and no, I’m not counting the Olympics), so it’s time for that annual August football/cycling crossover tradition to pop up again: football fans riding their bikes inordinately long distances across Europe to watch a match.

This time, it’s the turn of Norwegian cyclist, bike blogger, and Ipswich Town diehard (yes, really) Richie Wiik, who’s currently halfway through his 1,500km-plus ride from Olso to Portman Road to watch his team’s opening game of the season, and their first top-flight match for 22 years, against Liverpool next Saturday lunchtime.

Wiik, who’s sofa surfing during his bikepacking tour of northern Europe to mark Kieran McKenna’s side’s long-awaited return to the corrupt, desolate landscape that is the Premier League, says he started supporting Ipswich following their famous 1978 FA Cup Final victory over Arsenal.

“I love cycling. I have different cycling blogs,” he told the Ipswich Star. “I’ve been an avid fan of Ipswich since I was in my early teens, and so I was waiting for the fixtures to be released.

“I saw Liverpool at home for the season opener, and this was my trigger to do something crazy to cycle all the way from Oslo to Ipswich.”

Wiik’s route involved setting off on 28 July and riding south from Oslo to Denmark, then through Germany and the Netherlands, before ferrying across to Harwich and riding on to Portman Road, which he hopes he’ll reach next Friday, with a day to spare.

“The most challenging part has been the logistics,” Wiik says, noting that he started with a Liverpool-supporting friend, who turned back when they reached Germany.

“I have so far stayed in everything from a tent in someone’s garden to hotels, but my biggest revelation was finding a website called warmshowers.org. It’s couch surfing for the cycling community and I am amazed by how many hosts there are in Europe.”

Writing yesterday on his Facebook page from Germany, Wiik said: “Arrived in the German town of Papenburg, cycling slowly westwards in the manageable headwind.

“Passing countless German villages and hamlets the last couple of days, right off the beaten track, I can truly say I’d never be here and seen all this if it hadn’t been for the cycling.

“I aim to enter Dutch territory tomorrow, and mind you I find even that somewhat hard to fathom. I’m still not totally convinced I'll make it all the way to Ipswich and that first top flight clash in over 22 years, but the whole idea is starting to dawn on me!”

> An Italian all-road ripper, a 10/10 frame bag and a double Canyon: road.cc recommends updated with 11 top cycling products