Having competed in yacht racing, and now bike racing, I see strong similarities between Armstrong and Dennis Conner, who dominated several different sailing classes, including the America's Cup. He was both admired and loathed. He changed yacht-racing, by going to lengths of preparation and training never before seen, just as Armstrong did in cycling. Conner caused Ted Turner to retire from America's Cup racing, saying that Conner had "taken all the fun out of it". Conner was the first to start way ahead of the race (years in advance), and to use more than one boat, making incremental changes to one, evaluating the change, then either incorporating it or not. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum, and you end up with a well-honed machine. His book "No Excuse to Lose" is a great read, that applies to anyone competing in any sport. My boat was hauled out for awhile once at the yard of a guy who had built and prepped some of Conner's boats. The stories he told were amazing - fairing a hull to thousands of an inch tolerance, when everyone else just eyeballed it - things like that.