Tour de France director says the question of Pogačar doping is “not an illegitimate one”; Should people get tax relief for cycling to work?; Chloe Dygert drops out of stage race… after bumping into door and breaking her nose + more on the live blog

As the 2024 road cycling season approaches its conclusion, there’s one name who has been everywhere, done everything and won (almost) everything. First, it was the solo win in Strade Bianche, then he won the Volta a Catalunya with more stage wins than the rest of the peloton combined, and then, exorcising ghosts from past year, he won the Liège-Bastogne-Liège for a second time.

As the spring gave way to summer, and as the classics and monuments gave way to the two Grand Tours, Pogačar simply went and got what he wanted: the first Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani in 1998. After deciding to skip the Paris Olympics, allowing himself a break and rejuvenation period of sorts, last month, he repeated what he had just done, ie. get what he wanted — it was the rainbow jersey this time — and with that, the hallowed ‘Triple Crown’ of cycling.

> road.cc Podcast: Is Tadej Pogačar the greatest cyclist who’s ever lived? Plus we ask: What’s going on with cycling media in 2024?

But as cycling fans would know, with wins and success comes intense scrutiny. In a sport which has made legends and seen them torn down by malpractices, it would make sense that admirers and regulators of the sport alike would pay extra attention, having been burnt not once, not twice, but many times.

Tadej Pogačar wins the 2024 world road race championships, Zurich (Ed Sykes/SWpix.com)

It was Jonas Vingegaard and the Visma-Lease a Bike (Jumbo Visma back then) who was subject to the microscopic lens after his two consecutive Tour de France wins last year, and now the attention seems to have fallen back on Pogačar — this time, it’s the Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme himself who’s aired the questions.

In an interview with La Dépêche du Midi, Christian Prudhomme was asked to share his thoughts on the question of doping question in he sport, and if he’d be surprised to find out in future that Pogačar had, in fact, been using performance-enhancing drugs.

He replied: “Given the past of cycling and not so far, your question is not illegitimate. I do not have an answer. I note that it gives a boost to cycling competitions, by stages or one day, quite impressive. The controls exist, we fought with ASO to have independents, today it is the case with ITA [International Testing Agency]. There you go…”

He ended the question by giving Pogačar his roses still, saying: “We’re back to how it used to be, that is to say champions who are there from the beginning to the end of the season and with this will to win everything, which makes him similar to not only Eddy Merckx, but also to Bernard Hinault...

“For years, I heard Bernard say that these guys have to rediscover their sense of the game again, they have to have fun! That’s exactly what Pogacar is doing.”

Ahead of the second stage of the Simac Ladies Tour, Team Canyon-SRAM has announced that it’s lost three of its riders in a day, with Maike van der Duin and Soraya Paladin suffering from illness, while former American road and time trial champion Chloe Dygert has withdrawn after she broke her nose… apparently after bumping into a door.

It’s as if you Tyche herself came to the earth and decided to curse the team bus of Canyon-SRAM…

#SLT2024
We start stage 2 with @Backstedt_Zoe and Alex Morrice only.@chloedygert30 broke her nose before stage 1 and will stop the tour for a better recovery, while @SorayaPaladin and Maike van der Duin are, unfortunately, unwell. pic.twitter.com/oJ3JCHOscX

— CANYON//SRAM Racing & CANYON//SRAM Generation (@WMNcycling) October 9, 2024

Dygert’s situation has left cycling fans confused and baffled — with the 27-year-old not enjoying a lot of luck lately. She suffered a horror injury four years ago, suffering a severe laceration to her left leg. But while she has recovered from that setback, illnesses and other injuries have never really left her side — which Dygert claims has disallowed her from achieving her full potential.

She did manage to win two medals, one each in road and track cycling at the Paris Olympics earlier this year. However, at the individual time trial, she crashed on the wet Parisian roads, losing crucial time in her bid for gold and had to settle for bronze, and then at the road race was the architect of her own downfall when she divebombed her Canyon-SRAM teammate Elise Chabbey and caused a crash.

Canyon SRAM at the Simac Ladies Tour has gone from a pretty big high to a low...

Stage win yesterday and now down to 2 riders after illness hits and Chloe Dygert...*checks notes* bumps into a door #SLT2024 https://t.co/vKVAsOnSsx pic.twitter.com/3PLimgkwjX

— Mathew Mitchell (@MatMitchell30) October 9, 2024

Just weeks ago, Dygert — a self-proclaimed Conservative and ‘not-a-femisinist’ who was the focus of a controversy a few years ago when she liked transphobic and racist posts on Twitter — once again fell just short of claiming the road world championship title in Zürich, getting outsprinted by eventual winner and arguably one of the best sprinters in the peloton, Lotte Kopecky.

“It’s still hard to say that I’m happy… I just could not wait for Paris because I knew it was going to be a course for me. I knew it was going to be flat and I was so excited. So to not have a good day on race day was frustrating,” she told Olympics.com, after her third-place finish at the time trial, having missed silver by a few seconds.

> Chloe Dygert apology for social media conduct “not sufficient” says Rapha

All that aside, situation has gone from a euphoric high to a difficult low for Canyon-SRAM, leaving the team with just two riders for the six-day stage-race in the Netherlands, the British duo of Alex Morrice and Zoe Bäckstedt, who took her first pro win yesterday, winning the first stage, a 10.1km time trial in Gennep.

Oooh! Big questions coming in from the Twitter user CycleNotts, who’s made good use of the Norman Rockwell painting ‘Freedom of Speech’ meme trend, to say something so brave and so controversial…

I believe people who cycle to work should get Tax relief of 20p per mile. pic.twitter.com/mbVmL1UkCE

— CycleNotts² (@CycleNott) October 8, 2024

Lots of people had lots of different thoughts about this idea, with cyclist going by the username of ‘Real Gaz on a proper bike’ on social media, saying: “I applaud and agree with this. Cycling to work is a positive health intervention which should be rewarded and encouraged.”

Steve Hunt, meanwhile, seemed to be fixated on the feasibilities of how the whole tax relief thing would work: “I like the concept, but how could it be practically administered?  How do you prove a distance cycled and not driven?”

CycleNotts, the instigator of this online conversation, noted that the policy does work in other countries. In the Netherlands, for almost two decades businesses have rewarded bike-riding commuters €0.19 per kilometre, a spend the government allows them to deduct from their tax bill.

This mileage allowance was previously only available to drivers who could claim it to cover the cost of fuel. Since bikes don’t require expensive petrol, cyclists can simply pocket the money — which can amount up to €450 a year if someone’s cycling 10 kilometres a day, five days a week!

Even Belgium and France have similar schemes in place. In fact, one in five employees of small and medium-sized Belgian enterprises received a bicycle allowance of €0.24 per cycled kilometre in the first half of 2022. And in France, commuters can claim up to €0.25 per kilometre they cycle to work, up to a yearly cap of around €200.

So back to the big question, do you think the UK should introduce a similar tax relief for those cycling to work — saving the planet and improving mental and physical health at the same time? Let us know in the comments!

In the latest episode of the road.cc Podcast, we dive headfirst into the GOAT debate before going all meta with a chat about the current cycling media landscape, why it’s changed (and changing), and whether we should be worried about the future...

> Is Tadej Pogačar the greatest cyclist who’s ever lived? Plus we ask: What’s going on with cycling media in 2024?

Make of this what you will now...

Some totally out of context Armenian President Pashinyan cycling in rainy Moscow. pic.twitter.com/1MfNeqbFEv

— Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) October 8, 2024

"There is a very good bicycle path along the Moskva River, and we rode our bikes today," Pashinyanm who travelled to Moscow  to participate in the meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council, said.

In case you missed it, bike-building maestro and just simply a legend in the annals of the cycling world, Irio Tommasini passed away yesterday, aged 91.

And what better way to celebrate the man’s work than road.cc reader and a Tommasini tifoso Mike Curtis’ cave of the beautiful, gorgeous Tommasini bikes. He wrote: “Goodnight, wonderful Signor Irio; sleep well. Thank you for all your wonderful work, and rest assured that your memory will live on forever thanks to your wonderful creations… It was an honour to have met you.”

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Mike Curtis (@curdins)

PS. Thanks for keeping our Stay Awesome stickers in your workshop, Mike!