The secrets of the Pogacar phenomenon: metabolomics and the biologist-coach who defines himself as a “performance architect”

This article is taken from Pogachar, the shy king. Life, exploits and secrets
of the Martian of cyclingthe biography of the super cycling champion written by Corriere journalist Marco Bonarrigo and published by Solferino.

There are very few people who know the secrets of Tadej Pogacarwhich are very specific secrets, used for the first time in cycling and inspired by a field of study rarely attended in sports but much in oncology: metabolomics, or the large-scale study of metabolites, of the products, of the cellular reactions found in a biological system for the search for new diagnostic biomarkers or to identify therapeutic targets.

We will understand later what metabolomics is for in cycling, now we need to understand who approached Pogacar (and part of his very strong team) to this research methodology and its application in training.

Our man is a fifty-five year old Spanish man of Basque origins and his name is Inigo San Millan. In his social profiles, including LinkedIn, this biology doctor defines himself with a certain complacency «performance architect for elite athletes and teamsresearcher in the fields of metabolic health, mitochondria, cancer metabolism and lactate.” And he closes his card by explaining what his task is «trying to redefine human health»which says a lot about the ambition and personal consideration that ours has for himself.

Part genius, part mystical

San Millán is therefore a biologist, works at the University of Colorado but he has one or more studies in his native Spain and has published articles ranging from the study of the metabolism of cancer cells to the mechanisms of development of breast cancer, from the analysis of the dynamics of fatty acids in post-Covid patients to the analysis of sports performance. In short, serious stuff, certified by around sixty publications in listed magazines and in a truly large portion of human knowledge.

A genius? Perhaps. But a bit like what happened with the famous professor Francesco Conconi, who in the eighties and nineties as his main activity taught and studied how to cure Mediterranean anemia in Ferrara, also in Iñigo San Millán it develops a frantic passion for sport (even practiced) which pushes him to collaborate with Team UAE Emirates proposing himself as a scientific consultant and, at least at the beginning of Pogacar’s adventure, also as his personal trainera qualification that still appears on the Team UAE Emirates website even if it refers to the whole team.

He team maintains absolute confidentiality regarding the terms of the collaboration of San Millán who officially (and it seems after some personal disagreements) has no longer directly coached the Slovenian for two seasons (he is currently followed by the Spaniard Javier Sola, a graduate in physical education with no particular curriculum who maintains very strict confidentiality about his relationship with Pogi).

The case of monoxide

To understand what San Millán’s work consists of, we need to trace his at least fifteen scientific publications on cycling topics which – decoded carefully given their complexity – reveal an approach that could be defined as between the innovative and the mystical. But before starting, it is necessary to mention a controversy that affected Pogacar and his team (but not only) in mid-2024, when the news spread inaccurately that the Emirati athletes inhaled carbon monoxide (a notoriously toxic substance) to improve cellular oxygen transport and therefore their performance.

After initially denying its use, Pogi clarified better with the press the topic that had shocked public opinion. «This is a test we carry out during retreats at altitude to see how you react to altitude” Tadej explained to the reporters, “with a test that lasts two or three minutes: you breathe into a balloon for a minute and then the hemoglobin mass is measured (the average quantity of hemoglobin present in each red blood cell, nda) and then everything repeats two weeks later. It’s not like we breathe exhaust from a car every day. It’s just a pretty simple test to see how you respond to training at altitude.”

The measurement allows you to understand if there are deficiencies in iron, vitamins or any ongoing diseases. After the news spread (the test was also carried out by Visma del Stream from Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard) the International Cycling Union (always two steps behind current events in situations like this) issued legislation that limited the use of monoxide to short-term test and under strict medical supervision, even if the idea that athletes could breathe it for long periods was simply ridiculous. The use of the substance was then banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency in October 2025.

The test was quite clear how obsessive the team’s attention was to the dosage of work at altitudethe discriminating key to success or failure in a grand tour: if you stay too much or too little at altitude, if you train excessively hard or don’t recover, your body can suffer heavily and you burn you a season. And the examination of monoxide (inhaled in infinitesimal quantities), according to some physiologists (not all to be honest, for others it is a useless waste of time), would be useful for precisely measuring the effects of high altitude.

Who’s Holy Millán

But let’s get to San Millán and his work. In June 2020, together with five collaborators, the biologist published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology an article entitled «The Metabolomics of endurance capacity in World Tour level cyclists», while in March 2023 on the pages of Sports Medicine the research appears «Metabolic elements of performance in a group of very high level male cyclists of the World Tour category».

These are field studies, carried out without saving resources on athletes who – although “made anonymous to protect their privacy” – it is not difficult to identify how members of Team Emirates. Going into the details of the research is a job for experts, but the method is easily decodable: repeated blood samples (then dried for practicality reasons and sent to analysis laboratories) before training and competitions for «define metabolic signals and ranges of variation of the anaerobic or aerobic effort of the blood profiles of lactate, carboxylic acids, fatty acids and acylcarnitines”.

In short, a moving x-ray of a cyclist’s cells during an effort that allowed us to «draw a unique vision of the alterations of the blood metabolome of elite athletes during competitions and at the peak of their performance capabilities». These profiles, explains Iñigo San Millán, «offer an overview of the bioenergetics and metabolic physiology of optimal human performance. Although the present study is limited to the integration of metabolomic and lipidomic profiles, future studies will address the applications of orthogonal molecular characterization of samples obtained from dried blood spatters, such as proteomics.”

What is proteomics

Proteomics, for non-experts, is a sort of direct analysis of the cell which it can be used for early diagnosis of muscle fatigue or injuries, for personalizing training by cross-referencing the data with the athlete’s genetic profile and the development of personalized training programsidentifying areas for improvement.

For example, if a cyclist’s profile indicates a deficiency in proteins involved in energy metabolism, that’s possible develop a targeted training and nutrition program to those areas. In short, a revolution on a theoretical level (it is as if mitochondria could be precisely shaped from the outside to become more efficient) of whose practical application San Millán and his team are careful not to provide details.

What is certain is that Tadej Pogacar is behind Tadej Pogacar’s training, nutrition and recovery plans meticulous work on his organism which allows you to very precisely measure quantity and quantity of effort at various intensities, integration and nutrition.

Pogacar is the best of the F1 cars never appeared on a cycling circuit, the engineers who sit at the pit wall to manage it are of an absolute level, even if many of their colleagues they look with distrust to the nature of these researches by hypothesizing that only Pogacar and his are behind Pogacar’s performances immense talent and let the rest be smoke and mirrors.

His extra quality, the one that allows him to resist a routine of great psychological stress like this, is the ability to make the brain “float”. and reject any form of stress even when faced with impressively heavy commitments.

December 31, 2025 (changed December 31, 2025 | 12:28)

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