“It is frustrating people thinking that Tadej has been extra-galactical [extra-terrestrial] this year when he has never achieved the numbers he had last year,” Dr. San Millán said in a long conversation earlier this week. “He hasn’t achieved those numbers because he has never been challenged. So he’s going slower than last year; the reality is the rest have nothing. Absolutely nothing. They can’t even attack. Within one minute, you have six, seven riders who can’t even attack each other. It is very strange.”
“My humble opinion is that the pace of all the stage races, the majority of all of the one-week stage races this year, has been faster than the first week of the Tour de France,” Dr. San Millán said. “The Tour de France in fact has been one of the slowest first weeks, in comparison to the one-week stage races. And yet people are dead. That is the first thing. But the second thing is that people have made a lot of mistakes in their preparation at altitude training camps for the Tour. As they did already last year, like Ineos and Jumbo. Well, I would imagine that’s the case. Obviously Ineos messed up last year, like they did this year. And Jumbo didn’t work out last year, and it is not working this year either.”
As we all know, so much can happen between now and then, especially for a non climber.
