Tour de France cycling 2021 - Tadej Pogacar understands doping questions, does not plan to publish his data

ByEurosport

Published 13/07/2021 at 09:51 GMT

Tadej Pogacar looks well on his way to winning back-to-back Tour de France titles as he holds a commanding lead. No leader who has held more than a two minute advantage heading into the final week has lost the overall lead since 2000, except for Dane Michael Rasmussen in 2007 who was sacked for lying about where he was training. Pogacar says he understands why questions of doping could arise.

Tour de France race leader Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) says he gets why there may be accusations of doping directed at him.

Pogacar is in firm control of the overall GC, leading Rigoberto Uran by five minutes and 18 seconds with six stages of the Tour left.

As the Slovenian bids to retain his Tour de France title, he says he is not overly concerned by any questions relating to doping.

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"For sure I'm not angry," the 22-year-old said.

"They are uncomfortable questions because the [cycling] history was really bad. I totally understand why there are all of these questions.

I don't prepare anything for those kinds of questions because I just love to ride my bike. What comes with it comes with it. I accept it. If I need to answer them, I speak from my heart.

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Pogacar says he will not publish his performance data as he does not want to give rivals any sort of advantage.

"I've been asked this question a couple of times already and maybe one day I will publish my data," he said.

"But I don't see it would change anything because for the Tour you need to push good watts like all the others.

If you share all your data other teams can see your threshold and capability on certain terrain and that's really not useful.

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