Originally Posted by
base2
I was watching one of the many documenteries on Lance, it was when he was fairly new & before he got on with USPS team. I am totally going from memory, but the gist of it was he was run ragged and flagging, out of breath & at his limit when the Spanish team rode by like the wind. He asked: "How in the hell?" One of them responded: "Well, you don't know? You gotta do xyz to compete." It was from then on he says the rules (unofficial) of the game became obvious to him. So that's the rules he played by, USPS team owner asked are you willing to do anything to win. He said yes, and from then on history is made. Even when the rest of the field got warnings or inconclusive results, he simply took that as just the risk of the game & carried on where others got clean to avoid further scrutiny.
It's not the performance, (a watt is a watt is a watt) it's the recovery. Day after day they wouldn't wear out & fatigue at the same rate. If the other racers are on day 4 or 5 of a race, & you are as fresh as day 2 or 3, that's an advantage they felt was worth risking.
If I'm correctly recalling one anecdote, this incident in the 1994 TdF time trial -- when Indurain didn't merely catch and pass Armstrong but did a close brush-by pass to intimidate Armstrong -- was the main incentive for Armstrong to go from occasional and erratic doping to a systematic, nearly bulletproof approach.
Later, in 2001, Armstrong did the same thing to Ullrich.
And even on a level playing field without doping, Armstrong still would have been considered a bully and tyrant as a team leader by some people, and respected for those qualities by other more pragmatic participants and observers. It's in the nature of some highly competitive super alpha types. In particular it's what people look for in football team leaders and coaches. Doping doesn't create superachievers. It only enhances their existing natures.
The only difference is that Armstrong probably would not have thoroughly dominated the TdF for so long. He'd have performed more like normal humans before EPO -- some good days, some bad, relying on strategy and clock management to eke out narrower stage wins and placements rather than overwhelming the field.