The truth is there's really no way to know. Many people who develop long COVID don't get it until weeks after they contract the virus even if they have a very mild infection. Certainly going into one of the most grueling and taxing events in the entire world probably isn't the best thing for his body. I hope he is able to perform at a high level and suffers no long-term consequences. Last year, the tour seemed to take covid seriously. This year much like everything else people are pretending it doesn't exist which is unfortunate.
Exactly. There have been many cyclists and other athletes who have struggled with Long COVID. That is what Sepp Kuss is going through based on what he’s said (“post-COVID complications.”)
I guess the people saying it’s “just a cold,” including in these comments, don’t *think* they know someone in their life who suffers from it, but there are actually lots of people — around 10% of all COVID cases end with some form of Long COVID. So maybe if someone think sit’s “just a cold,” or that Long COVID isn’t a problem, they need to work on being the kind of person your friends can open up to. Everyone knows some folks who are struggling with it, whether they are aware of it or not.
Not that I am anything like a world tour athlete but when I had COVID I had a solid 2 months afterward where I would get all kinds of erratic heart rate behavior on every one of my rides. I have to imagine this had an impact on Pogacar's recovery from the Giro and will impact him somehow over the next 3 weeks.
I'm so glad that this knowledge is starting to become more known, as opposed to pulling immediate downvotes as has often been the case with reddit when it comes to this topic. It's becoming harder and harder to ignore the long term damage that it can do...
I am so glad to see that awareness about Long Covid is starting to pervade the subreddits dedicated to other topics.
As a serious recreational athlete (triathlete and ultramarathoner training 6-8x a week) who got mauled by extremely mild acute Covid infection (mine was basically sniffles and anosmia only, I never felt ill, never coughed, never had fever etc) 2,5 years ago and never got better, the best I can advise is not to be arrogant and not to think that good health, youth and high levels of fitness will protect you from Long Covid.
This is exactly what I did for the first 6 months of Long Covid - I was gaslighting myself that it’s completely impossible that someone so fit and healthy can get chronically ill overnight due to extremely mild Covid infection. I knew I was perfectly healthy, bc I had to undergo a sports medical checkup before every season to obtain competition license.
Your healthy lifestyle and fitness will not save you from Long Covid. You can get Long Covid from repeated Covid reinfections regardless of your previous health or level of fitness.
It is already well known that reinfections have cummulative effects on the risk of Long Covid. To cite on of the most eminent researchers in the field of Long Covid, Ziyad Al-Aly
“We compared people who have a reinfection to people who have no reinfection — not comparing the severity of infection versus the first. What we found is really undeniable: It’s very clear in our data that reinfection contributes additional risk of long Covid.
What does that mean for patients?
If you’ve had Covid previously and dodged a bullet and did not get long Covid the first time around and you’re getting another infection now, you’re pretty much trying your luck again. People need to understand that you can get long Covid the second time, even if you dodged the bullet the first time. You can get long Covid the third time.” ([Source](https://www.statnews.com/2023/09/20/do-long-covid-odds-increase-with-second-infection/))
Studies, such as [this big cohort study from Germany](https://www.bisp.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/DE/Nachrichten/2024/CoSmo_PM.html), are showing that rates of Long Covid among athletes are similar to general population - 9,8% for elite athletes and 13,8% for recreational athletes.
The only way to protect yourself against Long Covid is to not get Covid in the first place. Test, isolate and wear a mask if needed. Protect yourself and those around you. Masks work.
Testing is important, as Covid can give you stroke, diabetes, immune deficiency, autonomic nervous system issues, dementia or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, to name just a few long-term consequences of Covid, and common cold will not. If you have Covid, you need to aggressively rest to minimize the risk of Long Covid.
This 💯
Not to mention that currently undergoing Myoflame study in Frankfurt has found significant inflammatory changes concerning the small vessels to the heart in around 70-80% of patients who had Covid, most of those didn’t have cardiovascular symptoms at all.
As the study leader Dr. Valentina Puntmann explains, these are small, currently subclinical changes that can only be seen with a very sensitive MRI they are using in the study, but nevertheless likely set those who have them for a heart failure years down the line, in spite of not having cardiovascular symptoms at the moment.
Covid is not a cold.
Covid is not a respiratory, but a vascular and neurotropic virus, that damages immune system making individual more susceptible to other infections and cancers by causing T-cell exhaustion (similar to
HIV), attacks neural tissues and causes slew of neurological issues and causes endothelial damage and immune thrombosis with microclots. These are already things we know about Covid, so really no question about these.
It’s simply irresponsible from sport teams and athletes themselves not to protect themselves from Covid, when we already know it causes many long-term issues.
Yes it is. Long COVID is a nebulous term. There are symptoms and issues that people have that are completely invisible to them until their bodies are pushed to the limit. Ask Chris Froome about it. There are people whose symptoms only pop up weeks or months later. So it's wishful thinking to think that "healthy" people are immune to long-term issues.
It's all unknown. Seemingly mild cases chase people out of races. Severe cases have guys recover quickly. And everything in between. He'll probably be fine but you never know. Could cause a bad day even if he's fine. I feel like that's why Remco bonked out of GC contention in the Vuelta last year despite being fine since he had covid earlier that took him out of the Giro (after winning the time trial while infected).
It will impact his respiratory system (efficiency to absorb oxygen). The virus will be gone but the lungs needs some recovery. It may look ok to us ordinary cyclists because we really do not have any social/economic/team pressure to exert 100% performance, but they do.
I've had Covid twice, first time knocked my fitness for a loop for awhile, second time i was like a very mild cold with a lingering cough for a couple of weeks but I was still able to train pretty normally with not too many negative effects. If Pogi says he's ok and he has a way better medical and recovery team than me, I'll assume he's going to be ok, but we'll know after a couple of mountain stages I suppose.
Kilian Jornet won the 2022 UTMB while actively still infected with COVID— sounds like Pog's case was similarly mild, dude is gonna be just fine I'd reckon
Difficult question, Kilian Jornet is a fucking beast, of course he is not as good on a bike as Pogacar, he is a trail runner. On a maximum uphill effort running, Kilian would have time to shit and shower after finishing before Pogacar even saw the finish line. They are both GOAT in their sports, and they both have VO2Max > 90. So impossible to choose really.
Agreed on this— toss up. Any other elite ultra runner (Walmsley etc), I’d say Pog has the edge. But Kilian does insane high-altitude mountaineering efforts in addition to things like UTMB— I wouldn’t bet against his respiratory strength haha
For a sport so obsessed with marginal gains, this seems like a loss that is more than marginal. I completely agree. N95 masks are a lot cheaper than carbon wheels.
Covid is such a bummer. I’m 24 and Covid has taken so many nice things from me. The fact it might ruin what should have been one of the greatest tours in my lifetime is devastating.
Mate, I bet u/Either_Coast and I both inhale over 7000 calories a day for 3 weeks, and we don’t even ride.
We are nothing *but* peak superhuman performance.
Sucks but at least it wasn’t next week
Arguably somewhat of a benefit? He should have immunity for the next 3 weeks
That's Sepp's move!
I spoke to the Colorado Sepp fans at the presentation. They are gutted.
All of humanity is gutted. Sepp is the best of all of us.
We are gutted! So many with their GC Kuss shirts, I kept finding them. I wore my American riders t-shirt but I wore GC Kuss on the plane. <3
I am so bummed! My GC Kuss “wtf is a kilometer” shirt just came in yesterday
hahaha this is awesome
Sepp is already out...
Yeah, because of Covid. Hence my point.
Oh well, fingers crossed then :o)
The truth is there's really no way to know. Many people who develop long COVID don't get it until weeks after they contract the virus even if they have a very mild infection. Certainly going into one of the most grueling and taxing events in the entire world probably isn't the best thing for his body. I hope he is able to perform at a high level and suffers no long-term consequences. Last year, the tour seemed to take covid seriously. This year much like everything else people are pretending it doesn't exist which is unfortunate.
Exactly. There have been many cyclists and other athletes who have struggled with Long COVID. That is what Sepp Kuss is going through based on what he’s said (“post-COVID complications.”) I guess the people saying it’s “just a cold,” including in these comments, don’t *think* they know someone in their life who suffers from it, but there are actually lots of people — around 10% of all COVID cases end with some form of Long COVID. So maybe if someone think sit’s “just a cold,” or that Long COVID isn’t a problem, they need to work on being the kind of person your friends can open up to. Everyone knows some folks who are struggling with it, whether they are aware of it or not.
Not that I am anything like a world tour athlete but when I had COVID I had a solid 2 months afterward where I would get all kinds of erratic heart rate behavior on every one of my rides. I have to imagine this had an impact on Pogacar's recovery from the Giro and will impact him somehow over the next 3 weeks.
I'm so glad that this knowledge is starting to become more known, as opposed to pulling immediate downvotes as has often been the case with reddit when it comes to this topic. It's becoming harder and harder to ignore the long term damage that it can do...
I am so glad to see that awareness about Long Covid is starting to pervade the subreddits dedicated to other topics. As a serious recreational athlete (triathlete and ultramarathoner training 6-8x a week) who got mauled by extremely mild acute Covid infection (mine was basically sniffles and anosmia only, I never felt ill, never coughed, never had fever etc) 2,5 years ago and never got better, the best I can advise is not to be arrogant and not to think that good health, youth and high levels of fitness will protect you from Long Covid. This is exactly what I did for the first 6 months of Long Covid - I was gaslighting myself that it’s completely impossible that someone so fit and healthy can get chronically ill overnight due to extremely mild Covid infection. I knew I was perfectly healthy, bc I had to undergo a sports medical checkup before every season to obtain competition license. Your healthy lifestyle and fitness will not save you from Long Covid. You can get Long Covid from repeated Covid reinfections regardless of your previous health or level of fitness. It is already well known that reinfections have cummulative effects on the risk of Long Covid. To cite on of the most eminent researchers in the field of Long Covid, Ziyad Al-Aly “We compared people who have a reinfection to people who have no reinfection — not comparing the severity of infection versus the first. What we found is really undeniable: It’s very clear in our data that reinfection contributes additional risk of long Covid. What does that mean for patients? If you’ve had Covid previously and dodged a bullet and did not get long Covid the first time around and you’re getting another infection now, you’re pretty much trying your luck again. People need to understand that you can get long Covid the second time, even if you dodged the bullet the first time. You can get long Covid the third time.” ([Source](https://www.statnews.com/2023/09/20/do-long-covid-odds-increase-with-second-infection/)) Studies, such as [this big cohort study from Germany](https://www.bisp.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/DE/Nachrichten/2024/CoSmo_PM.html), are showing that rates of Long Covid among athletes are similar to general population - 9,8% for elite athletes and 13,8% for recreational athletes. The only way to protect yourself against Long Covid is to not get Covid in the first place. Test, isolate and wear a mask if needed. Protect yourself and those around you. Masks work. Testing is important, as Covid can give you stroke, diabetes, immune deficiency, autonomic nervous system issues, dementia or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, to name just a few long-term consequences of Covid, and common cold will not. If you have Covid, you need to aggressively rest to minimize the risk of Long Covid.
This 💯 Not to mention that currently undergoing Myoflame study in Frankfurt has found significant inflammatory changes concerning the small vessels to the heart in around 70-80% of patients who had Covid, most of those didn’t have cardiovascular symptoms at all. As the study leader Dr. Valentina Puntmann explains, these are small, currently subclinical changes that can only be seen with a very sensitive MRI they are using in the study, but nevertheless likely set those who have them for a heart failure years down the line, in spite of not having cardiovascular symptoms at the moment. Covid is not a cold. Covid is not a respiratory, but a vascular and neurotropic virus, that damages immune system making individual more susceptible to other infections and cancers by causing T-cell exhaustion (similar to HIV), attacks neural tissues and causes slew of neurological issues and causes endothelial damage and immune thrombosis with microclots. These are already things we know about Covid, so really no question about these. It’s simply irresponsible from sport teams and athletes themselves not to protect themselves from Covid, when we already know it causes many long-term issues.
Is long covid in otherwise healthy people common? Pretty sure it isn't.
Yes it is. Long COVID is a nebulous term. There are symptoms and issues that people have that are completely invisible to them until their bodies are pushed to the limit. Ask Chris Froome about it. There are people whose symptoms only pop up weeks or months later. So it's wishful thinking to think that "healthy" people are immune to long-term issues.
I didn't day immune. Just said it's much less likely. I couldn't find any hard stats though.
Kuss & Geogehan-Hart had covid and they're out. Sure Pog might be good now but we'll see. Sounds like it was more mild though for sure
they were both jabbed, pogs not. go figure
Kuss is out?! For sure??
Yeah it was announced a few days ago unfortunately
It's all unknown. Seemingly mild cases chase people out of races. Severe cases have guys recover quickly. And everything in between. He'll probably be fine but you never know. Could cause a bad day even if he's fine. I feel like that's why Remco bonked out of GC contention in the Vuelta last year despite being fine since he had covid earlier that took him out of the Giro (after winning the time trial while infected).
It will impact his respiratory system (efficiency to absorb oxygen). The virus will be gone but the lungs needs some recovery. It may look ok to us ordinary cyclists because we really do not have any social/economic/team pressure to exert 100% performance, but they do.
He’ll be fine.
I hope so. I really want him to be in his best health this year.
we'll all find out soon
I've had Covid twice, first time knocked my fitness for a loop for awhile, second time i was like a very mild cold with a lingering cough for a couple of weeks but I was still able to train pretty normally with not too many negative effects. If Pogi says he's ok and he has a way better medical and recovery team than me, I'll assume he's going to be ok, but we'll know after a couple of mountain stages I suppose.
Kilian Jornet won the 2022 UTMB while actively still infected with COVID— sounds like Pog's case was similarly mild, dude is gonna be just fine I'd reckon
Whose Vo2 max would you take between the two?
Difficult question, Kilian Jornet is a fucking beast, of course he is not as good on a bike as Pogacar, he is a trail runner. On a maximum uphill effort running, Kilian would have time to shit and shower after finishing before Pogacar even saw the finish line. They are both GOAT in their sports, and they both have VO2Max > 90. So impossible to choose really.
Agreed on this— toss up. Any other elite ultra runner (Walmsley etc), I’d say Pog has the edge. But Kilian does insane high-altitude mountaineering efforts in addition to things like UTMB— I wouldn’t bet against his respiratory strength haha
Lies. He's gonna try to roast Jonas on day 3
I don't understand how you wouldn't keep your athletes in a bubble at such an important time. Maybe naive of me but I just don't get it
For a sport so obsessed with marginal gains, this seems like a loss that is more than marginal. I completely agree. N95 masks are a lot cheaper than carbon wheels.
Covid is such a bummer. I’m 24 and Covid has taken so many nice things from me. The fact it might ruin what should have been one of the greatest tours in my lifetime is devastating.
I had Covid last week too. I’m back to being perfectly healthy, and I’m a fat middle aged non-athlete.
But you don’t have to deliver a super-human performance over the course of 3 weeks
Mate, I bet u/Either_Coast and I both inhale over 7000 calories a day for 3 weeks, and we don’t even ride. We are nothing *but* peak superhuman performance.
But he might not have access to the same performance enhancements as the top super human pros.
Or “She”. Women can be fat and middle-aged as well!
It won’t impact him I don’t think
Not at all
Given the current virus going around the peloton, getting some immunity in before the race might just be an ingenious move!
Sounds like sandbagging to me. A little something to take some pressure off ... and/or move the odds.
It’s a fucking cold for Christ sake. Can we stop with this.
Okay and even if it was just a cold, have you been able to perform at your highest level during and right after a chest infection?
I once knew an idgit.