Could Lance Armstrong be the best anyway?

Froomes Edgar

VinnyMarsden wrote:

I think Froome must come from that age group that just feel that sense of "entitlement" you know...that thought process that goes....Look I'm taking part, therefore I want some of the prizes, damn if I'm not good enough...I finished therefore I want a prize!
It's like school sports days....there are no losers now...why not?? Kids need to learn there are losers like there are winners...and the winners get the prizes....and usually the winners are the players/participants who are the best...not just who turned up....not EVERYONE can win Froome....it's life mate....or we would all be in the TDF wouldn't we??
I'm not having a go mate just saying.....winners are why sport is sooo vital, why its so intense....you cant just expect to get the spoils because you think its only fair because you had a go!!!

Well thanks for that. I suspect you'll find my argument is a bit more subtle than you think, but it's not your fault you didn't win the three digit IQ lottery. Have a gold star.

Matchstick Man

June 2012: "I have never doped … I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance

Armstrongs record in the TdF was
DNF
DNF
36th
DNF
Break of 3 years
1st 7 years in a row

Um.... No spike in performance there Lance!
He was a good one day Classics rider pre cancer but showed no three week stage race ability prior to 1996 so any talk of him being the best is disingenuous IMO. Before you start spinning the PR bollocks of losing weight then his weight at the Tour pre and post cancer was about the same - 73/74kg.
Taking someone with a HcT of 38% and bringing them up to 49.9% for 21 days in July by paying Ferrari hundreds of thousands of dollars is NOT levelling the playing field when other riders have naturally higher HcT and/or VO2 max scores

Froomes Edgar

Matchstick Man wrote:

June 2012: "I have never doped … I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance

Armstrongs record in the TdF was
DNF
DNF
36th
DNF
Break of 3 years
1st 7 years in a row

Um.... No spike in performance there Lance!
He was a good one day Classics rider pre cancer but showed no three week stage race ability prior to 1996 so any talk of him being the best is disingenuous IMO. Before you start spinning the PR **** of losing weight then his weight at the Tour pre and post cancer was about the same - 73/74kg.
Taking someone with a HcT of 38% and bringing them up to 49.9% for 21 days in July by paying Ferrari hundreds of thousands of dollars is NOT levelling the playing field when other riders have naturally higher HcT and/or VO2 max scores

Can you do the same exercise for Wiggins please?

Matchstick Man

Froomes Edgar wrote:

Matchstick Man wrote:

June 2012: "I have never doped … I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance

Armstrongs record in the TdF was
DNF
DNF
36th
DNF
Break of 3 years
1st 7 years in a row

Um.... No spike in performance there Lance!
He was a good one day Classics rider pre cancer but showed no three week stage race ability prior to 1996 so any talk of him being the best is disingenuous IMO. Before you start spinning the PR **** of losing weight then his weight at the Tour pre and post cancer was about the same - 73/74kg.
Taking someone with a HcT of 38% and bringing them up to 49.9% for 21 days in July by paying Ferrari hundreds of thousands of dollars is NOT levelling the playing field when other riders have naturally higher HcT and/or VO2 max scores

Can you do the same exercise for Wiggins please?

2005 (Giro) 123rd
2006 124th
2007 DNF due to dodgy Cofidis team
2008 (Giro) 134th
2009 4th

Doesn't look good for him does it?

Dess1e

Monty Dog wrote:

Dess1e wrote:

For those with a rose tinted view of the 70's and 80's, cross country skiers started to use blood transfusions to enhance performance around the same time as Merckx was DOMINATING cycling, a technique used legally up to the LA Olympics and the US Cycling team. You can draw your own conclusions.

You're getting your decades mixed up, Merckx was in his prime in 1969, a good 7 years before the likes of Lasse Viren was blood boosting at Montreal in 76 and US Cycling was blood doping at the LA Olympics. Merckx retired in 1978.

It was likely that Viren was blood boosting in Munich 4 years earlier, when Merckx was in the middle of his winning streak. The reference to the US team at LA was in reference to the technique still being in use legally at that point.

Also a short history of "blood boosting from the BMJ

The first alleged use of blood boosting in sport was in the 1960s, when a French four times winner of the Tour de France (1961–1964) was named as one of the first cyclists to use the technique. Widespread use among endurance athletes (especially running, cycling, and cross country skiing) started after the 1968 Olympic Games, in Mexico City which is situated at an altitude of 2300 m.1 Here the athletes from higher altitudes performed better in the endurance events because of various physiological acclimatisation adaptations, including increased red blood cell (RBC) mass.5 Blood boosting was the method adopted by many athletes after Mexico to increase their aerobic performance.6 It did not come to general public attention until the early 1970s when it was termed “blood doping” by the media.7,8 This followed a Finnish steeplechaser using the technique before winning two gold medals in endurance runs at the 1972 Munich Olympics.1 The technique became more popular during the 1980s and was used by distance runners (5000 m, 10000 m, marathon runners), cyclists, and skiers.1,9–11 Specific accusations were made against the Russians, Italians, Finns, Americans, and East Germans, particularly during the 1980 and 1984 Olympics.1,9,10 Athletes who admitted using the technique included the Italian cyclist who beat the one hour world record in 1984 and a Russian distance runner who specifically admitted to autologous transfusion with two units by team doctors in 1980.1 The US Olympic cycling team also admitted to having received homologous transfusions from friends and family before achieving outstanding results in the 1984 Olympic games, winning a record nine medals despite not having performed well in past Games.

The IOC forbade blood boosting after the 1984 Olympics, despite the fact that no methods had been devised for unequivocal detection.7

No, I think I got my decades quite right, maybe a decade too late if anything.

ricey155

Simple answer is we will never ever actual no :shock:

guys an outstanding athlete but needed / wanted to be no 1 without exception so drugged himself silly, shame really

Would be nice to test everyone from the same period for EPO if they saved there samples as well see who was also cheating :shock:

philbar72

The best cheat, possibly.
The best liar, probably.
The best bully, maybe.

As for his cycling, we will never honestly know. I think he was a good but never great athlete. I've never liked him though.....

mk1markfalkirk

Just heard Lance Armstrong the movie be announced on tv. What a crock of shit.

Froomes Edgar

Matchstick Man wrote:

2005 (Giro) 123rd
2006 124th
2007 DNF due to dodgy Cofidis team
2008 (Giro) 134th
2009 4th

Doesn't look good for him does it?

Especially as in 2009 he was fighting wheel to wheel with a doped to the gills Lance.

If there's one thing that the recent history of the TdF has taught us, its that people only bother to go after you for doping if they don't like you - hence renowned nice guys Indurain and Sastre getting a pass. If I were an anti-doping official I'd be preparing a dossier on Wiggins right now if only for that f*cking haircut.

upperoilcan

mk1markfalkirk wrote:

Just heard Lance Armstrong the movie be announced on tv. What a crock of shoot.

Hmmm, never thought there would be a 3rd American Psycho !

nolight

2009 - Lance Armstrong 3rd, Bradley Wiggins 4th
2010 - Lance Armstrong 23rd, Bradley Wiggins 24th

Lance Armstrong without drugs = Bradley Wiggins!

Matchstick Man

nolight wrote:

2009 - Lance Armstrong 3rd, Bradley Wiggins 4th
2010 - Lance Armstrong 23rd, Bradley Wiggins 24th

Lance Armstrong without drugs = Bradley Wiggins!

Lance was using drugs in 2009/2010

Josh_No90

Without wanting to go too far off-topic (and not wanting to open the Wiggins/Doping can o' worms), BW's upturn in road race form may have something to do with his increasing focus on the discipline after moving away from track cycling.

themekon

I find it a bit strange that Lance Armstrong is vilified even more because he was more successful at doping than his opponents. How would he have known what other teams were doing. Surely if Landis and others were naturally more gifted as athletes then doping would have shifted their bar even higher.
If Armstrong had been french then he would now be hailed as a hero and commentating for eurosport France

Hoopdriver

He is vilified primarily because of his bullying, viciousness, vindictiveness, the way he used his formidable wealth and aggressive legal team to silence and destroy anyone who was perceived to be a threat to his name or his brand, the way he blacklisted journalists, browbeat team members into doing his bidding etc etc etc.

lotus49

Hoopdriver wrote:

He is vilified primarily because of his bullying, viciousness, vindictiveness, the way he used his formidable wealth and aggressive legal team to silence and destroy anyone who was perceived to be a threat to his name or his brand, the way he blacklisted journalists, browbeat team members into doing his bidding etc etc etc.

Spot on and it couldn't happen to a nicer man.

I don't really care that much if Big Mig or The Cannibal took the odd bit of speed (not that I am condoning cheating under any circumstances) but LA deserves to be publicly pilloried for his appalling behaviour towards others.

y33stu

mamba80 wrote:

interesting a few have said LAs problem wasnt so much the drugs but that he was a bully? says who?

Er... everyone. :shock:

Just have a look at the list of people he has sued, for rightly claiming that he doped. Doctors, coaches, Newspapers, etc.. People's who's careers were ruined as a result of trying to help cycling.

Or how about the fact he kicked people off his team for asking for a pay rise. Riders who helped him through his cancer, who took him on his first ride after cancer. So Called long term friends.

Or ask Fillipo Simeoni, or various other riders he bullied or influenced in the peloton.

Joeblack

Froomes Edgar wrote:

Pross wrote:

I can't believe there are still people who think the fact that 'they were all at it' meant a level playing field and therefore the winner would have still been the winner. All it shows is who has the best doping programme and / or who responds best to pharmaceutical aids.

And if cycling were 100% clean, all you'd see is the rider who was lucky enough to be born with the best genetics winning. Why should this guy get millions in prizes, salary and sponsorship plus untold glory just by an accident of birth, whereas the genetically mediocre like us can't? That's equally unfair.

That is a ridiculously stupid comment, there are plenty of athletes in all sports born with talent but not the desire that would drive them to put in the hard work it takes for someone with talent to become a top flight sportsman, and visa versa there are loads that didn't have exceptional talent but with hard work and dedication have made the breakthrough.

You have obviously never been involved in any kind of elite sport.

When I was a kid I was at a football academy and they had a saying writen on the training ground wall - "do today what others won't so you tomorrow you can accomplish what others can't"

Froomes Edgar

Joeblack wrote:

Froomes Edgar wrote:

Pross wrote:

I can't believe there are still people who think the fact that 'they were all at it' meant a level playing field and therefore the winner would have still been the winner. All it shows is who has the best doping programme and / or who responds best to pharmaceutical aids.

And if cycling were 100% clean, all you'd see is the rider who was lucky enough to be born with the best genetics winning. Why should this guy get millions in prizes, salary and sponsorship plus untold glory just by an accident of birth, whereas the genetically mediocre like us can't? That's equally unfair.

That is a ridiculously stupid comment, there are plenty of athletes in all sports born with talent but not the desire that would drive them to put in the hard work it takes for someone with talent to become a top flight sportsman, and visa versa there are loads that didn't have exceptional talent but with hard work and dedication have made the breakthrough.

Urgh. And doping alone won't win you the TdF either without the desire or ability to hurt yourself on a bike - that's a patently obvious given, which I was hoping didn't need to be said. The question is whether the guy who is naturally better at responding to drugs, or the guy who is naturally better at cycling, wins. Personally, I don't care as long as its entertaining

nolight

Let's be honest. To win TDF is impressive, even with drugs. Not as impressive as without drugs, but still impressive.

ic.

Could Lance be the best anyway? I doubt it. Just look at his results pre cancer, he was a good single day rider, but suffered in longer races. And the general opinion is he was on drugs even then. He even said himself he started using mid 90s

I'm also sure there is still a lot we don't know about what he was taking. I firmly believe Hamilton and Landis were more naturally gifted riders, but he was still beating them. You only have to look at the rumours of what Rasmussen was on in 2007 to realise their is probably more to it than Edgar, blood bags and testosterone. Untested bovine-hemoglobin-based blood substitute for example - what's to say LA didn't get his filthy paws on similarly untested or unheard of stuff?

pride4ever

Can we please put this to bed..
http://www.cyclinghalloffame.com/riders ... 5graph.asp

Pross

Matchstick Man wrote:

Froomes Edgar wrote:

Matchstick Man wrote:

June 2012: "I have never doped … I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance

Armstrongs record in the TdF was
DNF
DNF
36th
DNF
Break of 3 years
1st 7 years in a row

Um.... No spike in performance there Lance!
He was a good one day Classics rider pre cancer but showed no three week stage race ability prior to 1996 so any talk of him being the best is disingenuous IMO. Before you start spinning the PR **** of losing weight then his weight at the Tour pre and post cancer was about the same - 73/74kg.
Taking someone with a HcT of 38% and bringing them up to 49.9% for 21 days in July by paying Ferrari hundreds of thousands of dollars is NOT levelling the playing field when other riders have naturally higher HcT and/or VO2 max scores

Can you do the same exercise for Wiggins please?

2005 (Giro) 123rd
2006 124th
2007 DNF due to dodgy Cofidis team
2008 (Giro) 134th
2009 4th

Doesn't look good for him does it?

So post 2008 Olympics and having quit the track to concentrate on the road he is suddenly more successful on the road. Who'd have thought it?

For both riders, once you get outside the top 20 or so the placings are fairly meaningless as riders aren't busting a gut every day to finish 30th rather than 100th.

pride4ever

Merckx craps on all of them/thread.

Froomes Edgar

Pross wrote:

So post 2008 Olympics and having quit the track to concentrate on the road he is suddenly more successful on the road. Who'd have thought it?

For both riders, once you get outside the top 20 or so the placings are fairly meaningless as riders aren't busting a gut every day to finish 30th rather than 100th.

Good point. There is indeed a strong precedent for a rider changing "type" halfway through a career and having a preposterously dominant team to guide him to victory.