From nickc’s article:
Physiologists and nutritionists acknowledge a limit there’s a limit for “safe” carbohydrate intake, but don’t think elite sport has found it yet.
In the meantime, nutrition brands are evolving their product lines to meet the demand for more, and physiologists tinker with test athletes to see how far things can go.
It’s only a matter of time before today’s “carb ceiling” is blown away.
It could be that coaches and teams have only really started looking for athletes who are ‘super eaters’, ie, people who can tolerate incredibly high amounts of carbs without it ending up coming out of both ends. Pog, Vingegaard, Rogalic, Evenepoel, etc could just be the first who happen to be able to tolerate higher levels of carbs and are therefore far ahead of the rest of the field.
If this becomes the defining factor in what makes a Grand Tour rider then we’ll start seeing the rest of the peloton reaching this level over the next few years.
It could also be that there is something the peloton has started taking that allows them to absorb carbs faster. Like every other drug there will be super-responders. It may be something that may or may not have long term health effects and which will be banned at a later time.
Or the carbs thing is just a red herring like Armtrong’s high cadence was.
Personally I’m not going to overthink it and just hope professional cyclists don’t start regularly dropping dead in their sleep again.
