Faster than Marco Pantani and Lance Armstrong – should we be worried about Tadej Pogačar?

Tadej Pogačar looks set to win the third Tour de France of his career after an impressive display in France. However, some might question the Slovenian's dominance.

With each passing day, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard are becoming more and more impressive. In a race all of their own, the two men exploded during the climb to the Plateau de Beille, beating Marco Pantani's ascent record.

Indeed on July 14, the Slovenian climbed the Plateau de Beille in 39'41, while the record was held by Marco Pantani in 1998, with a time of 43'20, according to 'Le Figaro'.

With this express climb, Pogačar put himself a considerable distance of one minute and eight seconds from his rival Jonas Vingegaard, while Remco Evenepoel, came third, at 2'51, according to Eurosport.

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To give an idea, in 2015, Christopher Froome climbed the Plateau de Beille with a time 5'41 longer than Pogačar, according to French newspaper Le Figaro. Wild times indeed.

The day before, the Slovenian had already beaten Lance Armstrong's Pla d'Adet ascent record by almost two minutes.

On the second mountain stage of this Tour de France, the riders arrived 26 minutes before the organizers' forecast time, with an average of 42.5 km/h. Proof that this Tour de France is going faster than expected.

On X, the former technical director of Festina, Antoine Vayer, commented on these performances. The former cyclist couldn't believe his eyes: "Pantani's mutant record beaten by 3 minutes and 44 seconds! After five passes. 5 hours 13' of effort for 15.95 km at 7.87% in 39 '46 seconds at 24.07 km/h. It's monstrous."

Photo credit X @festinaboy

Frédéric Grappe, performance director of Groupama-FDJ, explained the reasons behind the dramatic shift in record times to Le Figaro, saying that these performances are not surprising: "You have to understand that we have reduced rolling resistance. The bicycle is an object that deforms like a pole in a pole vaulting. If the pole is hard, it bounces back more if you manage to bend it."

"The bicycle is the same and today, it returns much better at the level of the frame and the wheels, which has reduced the loss of energy with each pedal stroke. Today, if we go faster than the Armstrong years, that is completely normal," he concluded.

However, this progress does not explain everything and, during the ascent of the Plateau de Beille, Tadej Pogačar put out a low estimate of 6.8 watts per kg, or 448.8 watts according to the reference weight of 66kg for the Slovenian. For his part, according to the ChronosWatts archives, Lance Armstrong made this same climb in 2001 at 6.1 watts per kg. A much lower power, while the American was heavier and exceeded 70 kg.

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