Former professional cyclist Alex Dowsett has critiqued Thomas Tuchel’s concerns that there isn’t enough time to prepare the England World Cup squad for playing at high altitude before they face Mexico on Monday.
Following their victory over DR Congo yesterday, the England team will head to Mexico City and the Azteca stadium, which is roughly 2,200m above sea level, for their last-16 match against the co-hosts.
Tuchel told the BBC that: "The altitude will be a big disadvantage because we cannot physically adapt to it.”
"It just takes too much time. We have only three days in between these matches. It's physically just not possible to adapt to the altitude," the England manager added.
"I don't get how it's still a problem"
Alex Dowsett queried Tuchel’s remarks in a LinkedIn post today. “Watching England's altitude problem this week, I don't get how it's still a problem,” he wrote.
“I spent big chunks of my career living at 2,000m in Andorra. Waking up that high wasn't some special block we bolted on, it was just where we lived and trained. Altitude camps were normal life as a pro cyclist. You went up, you slept high, the body did the work in the background, and you came down sharper,” he continued.
Although they’re markedly different sports, Dowsett, who co-founded the AI training platform Stride earlier this year, drew comparisons between the hard efforts required in cycling and football.
“For me the biggest change was recovery from anaerobic efforts spattered within threshold blocks, like a hilly Time Trial. Going hard, going again, and again after that, and still holding the quality. I'm no football expert but that's every sprint and every press in a football match surely?”
‘A tent in your bedroom’
It takes time for the body to adapt to high altitude and many of the effects of training at altitude do not occur immediately. Research suggests there is no increase in red blood cell count within the first seven to 10 days of altitude training, which is why athletes spend extended periods of time at altitude.
This is what’s behind Tuchel’s remarks about his squad, captained by Harry Kane, not having time to prepare for their match against Mexico.
But Dowsett takes a different view. “A tent in your bedroom does most of the job,” he wrote, referring to altitude tents that simulate a higher altitude.
“Makes you wonder how many known gains get left on the table, in sport and everywhere else, just because nobody made them normal,” Dowsett concluded.
