UAE Team Emirates' Tadej Pogacar celebrates on the podium after winning stage 21 and winning the Tour de France Tadej Pogacar has admitted “there will always be doubts” about his credibility as a clean rider after dominating the 2024 Tour de France to win his third yellow jersey. Pogacar blew away his rivals one last time on Sunday to win the stage 21 time-trial from Monaco to Nice by more than a minute. It was his sixth stage win of the Tour – the most collected by the champion since Bernard Hinault in 1979 – and capped a historic Giro-Tour double.
His control prompted some doubts on social media about the credibility of his performances, and that talk intensified last week after an investigation by Escape Collective revealed how elite teams are using controversial carbon monoxide rebreathing equipment in altitude training camps. The equipment could be used for performance enhancement, although it is not banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency and three teams – Visma, UAE Emirates and Israel Premier Tech – insisted they use it only for measuring training performance. Both Pogacar and his main rival Jonas Vingegaard said it had only been used for diagnostic purposes.
It also didn’t help when Lance Armstrong, who was stripped of his seven Tour titles for cheating, warned that Pogacar should reel in his attacking style so as to avoid speculation. “I would advise him to lay low a bit more,” Armstrong said last week. “Sometimes you have to think about perceptio.