Originally Posted by doctorSpoc
I'm not aware of another rider who has made that stark a transition. you are right that when he was struck with cancer is the age that most of the greats start to win Grand tours (aerobic capacity maxes out at about age 30 or so) but most would have shown themselves in lesser stage races by then and he didn't... you see people like Ullrich (TdF) and Cunego (Giro) winnig their first at 23, and Merckx 24... there is a big difference between a Grand Tour winner and classics rider. Grand Tour winners are born grand tour winners and that shows quite early in their career.. the closest i know of to making that kind of transition is DiLuca this year, Sean Kelly had a 4th place at TdF... but you just don't see people making that kind of transition.. actually i can think of another rider who has made this kind of transition... Bjarne Riis but that raised some eye brows too... especially with his remarkable increase in hematocrit count and the availability of EPO coming on stream about that time... but even his transition wasn't as extreme as Lances.
but like i said, each point taken on it's own is not enough, when you are dealing with this kind of thing it's an accumulation of many things that starts to raise eyebrows not one thing...
What do you mean by a transition? If changing from being mainly a classics rider to mainly a tour rider then Lance having cancer does explain it pretty well. Loss of body mass means loss of the kind of explosive power needed to win most classics. It would seem reasonable that he would then concentrate on what he could win, stage races, rather than what he could no longer win, classics.
If you mean seeming to come from nowhere to uccess in the TDF then he is hardly unique, save perhaps doing it a bit later in life. Indurain rode tours for years. I count 10 before 1990, with his best finish 17th and 5 abandonments. Guess he was just not cut out to win a major tour. Then in 90 he got a 7th and a 10th. In 91 his 5 straight started. Does this mean in 90 he started with drugs? Gimondi came out of nowhere tourwise in 65 to win the TDF. He actually was only in the TDF because another rider on his team was unable to go and before he rode the Tour he insisted on a contract for the next year because he was afraid he would bomb out so badly he would have trouble getting a contract afterwards. Did he discover drugs half way through the tour?
Actually Lance made no great jump. 4th in the Vuelta in 98 then his tour wins. Lance won the TDF 7 times, but he did not dominate any single Tour like Merckx, Coppi or Hinault did in their primes. Lances rise only seems huge if you believe his press machine. If one is to credit his 'rise' to drugs one has to think he has drugs others do not and for some reason only started using them after his cancer. This seems a rather strange idea to me.
Of course that does not mean I think Lance is clean. I am pretty much inclined to agree with Smoothie104. Drugs are rampant in cycling and it seems likely that Lance is not some unique exception. Also if the whole sport is dirty then it is no surprise that others at the top have no problem with whatever level of doping Lance is involved with. After all if they dope at teh same level they can hardly blame Lance. Also that would mean the playing field is level, but perhaps deadly.