Tadej Pogacar has been absolutely headlining this Tour de France with incredibly performances in all terrains and a popularity that never fades. But he’s also been in the spotlight for other reasons over the past week including an investigation into carbon monoxide rebreathing in the World Tour and also a mysterious figure ‘Mou’ who many believe is a mole within the UAE Team Emirates structure that has been letting out information that at points appears quite convincing.
Pogacar was asked about this the carbon monoxide topic after stage 16 but gave a very vague answer, replying he did not know what it was. This came after an investigation from Escape Collective which warns to the possibility of this method being used for performance enhancing. The Slovenian was asked again this Thursday afternoon after stage 17 and understood what the question was this time around: “It’s a test in altitude camp to see how you respond to altitude. You need to do this test, it’s like a two- or three-minute-long test. You breathe into a balloon for one minute and then you see the haemoglobin mass, and then you need to repeat it two weeks after,” he responded.
“But I did just the first part of the test. I never did the second part because the girl who was supposed to come after two weeks didn’t come. It’s not like we’re breathing exhaust pipes every day in the cars. It’s just a pretty simple test to see how you respond to altitude training.”
The performances over the weekend, including an historically strong ascent of Plateau de Beille that has broken records left and right when it comes to climbing power output, has further raised questions over the preparation methods of UAE Team Emirates and other teams. Pogacar has also been asked about ‘Mou’, a Cyclingnews forum user that back in February and March claimed to be quite close to the Slovenian and extensively talked about details in his changes in training, preparation, coaches and predicted his significant improval in 2024.
What has given some degree of validity to this figure is the release of alleged training data from Pogacar himself on Training Peaks, inside knowledge on the change of coaches for several of his teammates and him, and changes that have accurately been predicted months ahead. On X (formerly known as Twitter), this user has been continuously sharing messages and also some of his former posts, and has grown to a level of popularity that sees reporters at the Tour question Pogacar who this is.
“I have heard in recent days the he has received a lot of attention. He is right about some of that, but most of it is wrong,” Pogacar responds when asked about ‘Mou’ from Ekstra Bladet. “I don’t know who that guy is and what his purpose is. He is just trying to be important on Twitter and on various forums. I don’t follow it, but I’ve heard a lot about it and people ask. Maybe we can all figure it out together. It is perhaps more your job than it is mine to find out who he is”.
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