Jakedatc

hypocritical bastard...

"pantani was such a talent..with or without doping" giving him all this praise. But Lance is the devil... got it.. Lemond is a bitter ******bag. It's too bad no one cares enough and he's too irrelevant to have his old blood tests reviewed..

spdntrxi

gotta agree somewhat...

Jakedatc

with me or Greg? I agree that Pantani was a talented guy. insane rider. but so is everyone at that very top level. picking and choosing who you're going to publicly praise and who you want burned at the stake shows personal bias.

spdntrxi

with you...

RJM

If you can't say something nice, shouldn't say anything at all. That's how I feel about Lemond's comment. Shows poor taste, IMHO.

gregf83 

He said Pantini was talented. Seems nice enough.

Jakedatc

He does, but for years he tried to burn Lance at the stake for nothing other than personal bitterness and spite. it's hypocritical

RJM

Oh hell, I thought the op's post was his whole quote, which it apparently wasn't. I should read closer in the morning.

gregf83 

So you're not upset he called out Lance for being a doper, you just think he should have also said something negative about Pantini. They're all liars and hypocrites so who cares. Actually, Lemond doesn't appear to have been a liar.

Jakedatc

He seems to be picking who he'll praise regardless of doping and who he wants tarnished to make himself look better. no one compares him to Pantani.. but Lance became the American face of cycling, instead of him. I can't remember how vocal he was about Landis

sorry, they just had it as a short clip during a break in the action and i paraphrased a bit. lemond is doing a whole thing with comments during the giro, not sure if they are shown somewhere.

fietsbob

BBC Sport - Cyclo-cross: Helen Wyman on the Tour of Britain & Tour de France

cruiserhead

LeMond's comment about Pantani is correct. Doping or not, he was a talented rider.
Lance was a rouleur until doping transformed him. Lance never had it to be a GT GC rider naturally.
LeMond has stated that clearly many times.

Besides doping, you are ignoring major character and legally deceptive flaws that Lance perpetrated on the public, his sponsors, riders, the sport and personal attacks against LeMond.

Why would LeMond ever be a hypocrite for not acknowledging Lance as anything more than what he believes Lance to be?
A decent bike racer that is the biggest sporting fraud, as well as bully in sport.

It's sad that everyone back to pre-EPO days needs to produce blood samples to prove they did it clean. But that's what cheating does, it denegrates the sport and twists honorable sporting character. Fans take note and actually defend this crap. It's really twisted.

LeMond did it clean. History proves it and by his own account, once EPO and blood doping came on the scene, basically killed LeMond's chances.
LeMond was a classy GC rider from the start. His physiology was never artifically enhanced. It is the same from when he was a stagiaire to the end of his career.

None of this is new info or hidden info.

Uh, no. Maybe LeMond was "tried to burn Lance" a.k.a. "tell the truth" because it was the TRUTH.
That couldn't have been what it was, could it?
LeMond pissed on omerta because he actually has a backbone and won't lie.

Walter

I was a LeMond fan back when he was winning. I can remember the very limited coverage and ABC "spoiling" the results in an ad. I was never vocal in the LeMond v Armstrong drama but was unsurprised when Armstrong went to Oprah.

Greg can say what he wants; he never really has cared what others think. I doubt he does now.

roadandmountain

Fantastic post.

Lance still has a huge number of fans. They're going to attack anyone who spoils their fantasy.

Zinger

I was always kind of an an underdog rooter and so made heros of guys who didn't get as far as Greg. Hell I liked Armstrong better when he won an occasional stage than when he started dominating the tour.

But Greg always annoyed me just a little ever since he complained about not getting a free ride from Hinault during the '86 Coors Classic. He should've seen it coming after that year's TDF. It's a bike race I was thinking.....Why doesn't he just stfu and compete?

Anyway I always thought it interesting that he figured out that Armstrong was juicing at about his matching TDF victory. He knew what the field was about for those that stayed on and raced back then.

Oh well, I didn't really have a dog in this fight but that's my $.02. Lemond just manages to annoy me a bit from time to time.

I do still refer to his "Complete Book of Bicycling" for fit and maintenance of my oldies though.

Nikon Rep

Lemmond has a very unhealthy obsession with Lance Armstrong.

A lot of people do.

Nikon Rep

How could you possibly know that ? Lance never raced against clean riders.

Gallo

I am not sure I get the logic here. So Lance was "made" by the drugs. Do you honestly believe that Lance did not possess the same talent as Pantani? He was a pro triathlete at 16 was tapped by US Cycling while still in High School.

Lance was a ****** in how he vehemently attacked any and all who questioned his cheating while he was cheating. Tried to ruin lives. Was a bully. I get why many do not like him.

However to claim he had no talent and it was only drugs that got him where he was is a bit disingenuous. I still remember watching the Pantani vs Armstrong on Ventoux. It was spectacular. It occurs to me that they were both doped to the gills as were every other rider save those the purposely refused it.

As far as Greg he is a Great Champion. He got a bit peevish and seemed to want to hold onto he was the greatest American Rider ever. With or without the fall of Armstrong there would have been debate with those that thought Greg was better. To many cycling fans Greg is lesser for the campaign against Armstrong. The whole sport was dirty but Greg focused on one man for which appear to be very selfish reasons.

I am glad they are trying to clean it up. Watching the Giro now.

Ramona_W

If he did, he'd be under the bed hiding from all the comments about how old and fat he has become. The years have been kinder to some of us than they have to others but nobody looks the way they did the last time Lemond won the TdF.

bikemig 

It may not be time for posters on BF to move on past the LeMond/Armstrong thing, but it is time for Greg LeMond to move on. He made his point (and he was right about Armstrong); now he needs to get a life. Seriously.

roadandmountain

Another terrific post.

Let's evaluate greg's TDF career. He won three tours in 86/89/90, but would also have won in '85 had he not been ordered not to assist roche in stage 17. Greg also lost two opportunities to win the tour in his physical prime in 87/88 due to the shooting accident.

Had he not been sabotaged by how own team director and teammate in '85, and had the accident not happened, there's a very good chance that greg could have won six straight tours ALL COMPLETELY CLEAN.

Greg was an absolute freak of nature, with an optimal physique and physiology for GC riding. He was the real deal. Put yourself in his shoes: his legacy as a competitor, champion, and his ability to create a brand for himself after his racing career were all undermined by a sociopathic, criminal doper.

Although greg is now vindicated, he is unable to retrieve all of those years where lance was able to capitalize on his "victories" as a "champion," promoting his brand to the hilt as "america's greatest cyclist," all titles which legitimately belong to lemond.

I completely understand where greg is coming from and have no sympathy for lance whatsoever.

Greg didn't screw Lance; Lance screwed Lance.

cruiserhead

No, he did not possess the same talent as Pantani. There are gifted cyclists, many of them. Some are great pure climbers like Pantani.
Some are Olympians from other sports, with amazing genetics, that are good but not great cyclists like Eric Heiden.
Lance was a rouleur, of the same skills as many one day or classics riders.

You want the closest thing to a possibly 'clean' Lance vs doped Lance, watch the mountain stages in 09 when Contador blew his doors off and Lance turned into Shirley Temple crying about it. [Haters bash LeMond for tour leadership drama but the fact is, it happens. People just want something to put LeMond down for.]

The next day on Ventoux, doped Lance almost keeps up with Contador.

Let me ask you if you achieved something great that took your whole life, and someone you knew was cheating took over that mantle, you would not call it?

Speak for yourself. Many fans I know feel he's been validated.

Get the facts straight, don't parrot Lance apologists. Greg did not "focus" on one man. The media did.
LeMond had a lot to say about the Lance subject because of intertwined business dealings and Lance attacks on LeMond.
LeMond didn't go looking for a fight, Lance did.

cruiserhead

It's obvious you haven't moved on with tired arguments like that.
LeMond has been living his life and doing a lot, which is great to see.
Haters will just parrot tired rhetoric because they won't take any time to find out what the guy has been doing.

I'm glad that truth won out this time. It took many years and LeMond has gone through many painful moments, things I'm sure would destroy a lot of people,
but he made it.

I can only look at LeMond as a survivor that never lost his moral convictions. He has character.
In the face of many dismissing him for years, and only truth on his side, LeMond never let go of who he was or the truth.
That's a true champion.

bikemig 

Beats me if my argument is "tired" or not but you could have found a better target to vent your spleen; or maybe not. But you certainly made up a lot of things I didn't write.

I don't hate him. I liked him when he raced a lot and followed his career.

Sometimes though you need to move on in life. It wouldn't hurt LeMond to do so.

Gallo

So once again your logic escapes me.

So you are going say that a clean Armstrong 5 years out of his prime and had not raced and goes on to podium in TDF is a sign that he has no talent? Really that's your argument? When Contrador did not play nice a tow the company line I loved it.

You make my point about Le Mond It really did not matter what Lance did in his career. Greg's resume was there and many including myself would have argued that Le Mond was better. He lost nothing. Everything he had won was still his.

You go to the Greg Le Mond media circus back in recent history look at his quotes directed exclusively toward Lance Armstrong.

And I agree Lance did it to himself with his brutal and destructive form of defending himself when who knew he did wrong. Had he simply been more of a Gentleman about cheating as Riis did he might still have his jerseys like Bjarne has his.

Lets face it many doped. Maybe taking down an icon was what the sport needed to shed itself of this scourge. In that I am hopeful, I have no personal investment in Lance.

As far a being validated everyone that was a cycling fan knew he and most of the pelaton were on dope. For god sakes man the Festina car was a moving lab. The dopers always seemed have a couple steps ahead of the UCI. It was comical but not funny. I think if we go backwards we can find many infractions and causes for dismissal. I am not sure what that point would be. I hope we move forward and the sport cleans up.

But to say the man had no talent is not a valid statement. In fact your argument of why he does not effectively proves he did.

To say he has no Jerseys is a valid statement.

To say Greg has three is a valid statement