The new benchmark set by Tadej Pogačar on Alpe d'Huez has reopened a question that accompanies every comparison between eras: how much of today's advantage depends on talent and how much on advances in training, nutrition, and technology?

The starting point is well known and perhaps already history... Pogačar covered the climb in 35'27", compared to the 36'50" attributed to Marco Pantani in 1995. The gap is 83 seconds, equivalent to 3.76% less time and an average speed roughly 3.9% higher. But this difference cannot be read as a pure measure of scientific evolution. The stage length changes, the previous effort, wind conditions, tactics, aerodynamic protection, the weight of the athlete-bicycle system, and naturally individual characteristics all vary.

Cycling in the Nineties was not devoid of physiological knowledge. Professionals already understood threshold work, altitude training, intervals, and periodization. The difference is that today preparation has become a continuous process of measurement and correction. Power, lactate, VO₂max, internal load, recovery, and "durability" are integrated into a single decision-making system. It's not just about how hard a rider can go when fresh, but how well they can maintain that power after four or five hours.

Studies show that load distribution can produce significant variations. In trained cyclists, six weeks of polarized training produced peak power increases of 8%, compared to 3% from a program more focused on threshold work. In another experiment on elite cyclists, three weeks of short intervals improved average power over twenty minutes by 4.7%, while the group subjected to longer intervals showed no comparable gains. Strength training, now firmly established in programs, has also shown favorable effects on time trials.

These numbers, however, cannot be directly transferred to the Pogačar-Pantani comparison. Pantani was not poorly trained. The historical advantage does not coincide with the full effect observed in the laboratory, but with the residual part obtained from more careful method selection, greater personalization, and error reduction. The nutritional revolution is equally significant. Even in the Nineties, grand tour riders consumed enormous quantities of carbohydrates: a 1998 survey documented over 800 grams per day. What has changed is mainly the distribution during the race. Before 2010, intakes of 30-60 grams per hour were common; today, in the most demanding stages, riders systematically reach 90-120 grams per hour, through glucose and fructose blends calibrated for duration and intensity.

The difference is substantial. Over four hours, moving from 23 to 90 grams per hour means consuming approximately 268 more grams of carbohydrates, equivalent to over one thousand calories. Not all this energy is used immediately, but the main benefit is preserving muscle and liver glycogen and reaching the final climb with less power loss.

How much is all this worth on the stopwatch? A conservative estimate, built by combining available results without mechanically adding them, places the advantage attributable to modern integration of training and nutrition between 1.3% and 3% of the time. On a climb of approximately 36 minutes, this means between 29 and 66 seconds, with a central estimate close to 44 seconds.

Adding materials, system weight, aerodynamics, and race conditions, the overall interval plausibly rises between 2.2% and 5.6%, or between 48 and 123 seconds. The 83 seconds observed between Pogačar and Pantani thus fall squarely within this range.

The scientifically most important point is another one. The modern advantage does not arise from a single invention, but from the sum of small reductions in inefficiency: fewer unproductive training sessions, less error in prescription, better race nutrition, faster recovery, more precise weight and load management. Pogačar's record is therefore compatible with the evolution of science applied to cycling. It does not, however, constitute causal proof. The stopwatch measures the result; it does not alone separate talent, technology, context, and physiology. Statistics can delimit the field of the plausible, but cannot transform a performance into a verdict.

Giovanni Di Trapani is a senior researcher at CNR currently on secondment to the Office of the Prime Minister: he coordinates the support structure for the Bagnoli Coroglio Commissioner.