Leinster

Oh I know. Like I said, it's a bad metric. The 92 Tour was 39.5, nearly a full kmh faster than 90, but then 92 left out the Pyrenees almost entirely.

As for how he climbed like that, I guess one explanation was that he was at the intersection of the developing understanding of how lung capacity and VO2max helps with climbing, but still with the old school climbing on power gears. He was certainly going up at a lower cadence than Armstrong in the 00s, or Froome or Contador would now, probably a 23 or 21 where Froome would use a 28. And in 96, Riis beat him on the big ring!

Campag4life

Thanks for summarizing. What you write seems plausible.

As to the parallel with Woods. Its a broader perspective is all. I am an avid cyclist but for example you know more about pro cycling than I do...or the history of it. By contrast I probably know more about golf than anybody on the forum because of my background. So I was drawing the analogy that the downfall of Armstrong is in many ways what happened to Woods. What has sunk both of them is more how they treated others as opposed to how they played the game. Yes it could be argued that Armstrong doped and cheated and Woods didn't...or perhaps Woods did and wasn't caught but as in the case of Lemond, I believe you are innocent until proven guilty. I in fact believed that to be the case of Armstrong as well. I believed he beat the world by being a genetic outlier and he outworked all others with his singular focus. But I was proven wrong about Armstrong. He may have taken doping to the highest level in all of sport in fact. But in spite of others cheating in cycling I believe Armstrong developed a huge target on his back largely because of how he intimidated others and he deserved to be taken down. Pretty much the same with Woods. He treated everybody like $h!t and now that things aren't going his way, he has no sympathy to draw from. To me a close parallel. To those with a less broad perspective perhaps not.

Leinster

Oh, I saw the parallels. I don't know pro golf nearly as well as you, but I come from a golfing family, so I understood well enough where you were coming from. I was never a particularly big Tiger fan, though I must say I was a lot more surprised when things blew up in his face than in Lance's.

And I agree with your general point. Like I said, if Armstrong had been as nice to people as Indurain, maybe the view on giving him back his titles would be different. Maybe they wouldn't have ever been taken away.

hueyhoolihan

it's not complicated...

what goes around, comes around.

Campag4life

Interesting. So you suspected Lance was a doper. I was a bit poly ann-ish in the beginning I suppose...maybe hoping he wasn't a cheat. I thought it was possible that he was an extraordinary physical outlier of unprecedented proportion but only to learn he was an epic cheat in addition to his cycling gifts. Insiders of golf knew Wood's temperament which is just nasty. Of course nobody knew the extent of his philandering but honestly that isn't why he is so insufferable. He treats everybody the same...underlings to his success. In this regard I view Lance and Tiger identically. In fact the similarities are striking.

Campag4life

Yup..sometimes it takes a while tho.

whitemax

I agree. He probably would have gotten away with it if his narcissism hadn't gotten in the way and he'd just kept his mouth shut. But...hard to say. I always found it to be amazing that while many others on his team knew what he was doing, that he still believed that no one would ever tell or that no one would believe them if they did. It's almost human nature, people just can't keep a secret. While I always suspected that he was doping, I always wanted to believe (hoped) that he wasn't. It was a magical time in cycling for me, the whole Armstrong era where the American public finally began to develop an interest in the sport on a large scale. I do believe that his ego is at least partly responsible for his success on the bike. Mental fortitude is a very important aspect of the sport of cycling I think we'd all agree.

hueyhoolihan

i agree. another major factor was that he was a victim of his own success. the pedestal he was put on by those close to him and those around the world. was so high that it was fatal should he fall or jump off. lesser lights merely had to step off a platform. still, on on a personal level, he an ass and bully though. he even mentioned it in a recent video.

Campag4life

Without a doubt Lance believes and perhaps to this day that he is cycling Jesus. Honestly Woods felt the same way although now he's choking on some serious humble pie as his confidence is rocked by his injuries and lack of playing. I can speak to Woods a bit better than Armstrong. Woods became reckless. In fact this argument as you point out can be made for Lance. Both of their sense of entitlement made them believe they could do whatever they want and get away with it because nobody would believe otherwise and many didn't until the evidence became too strong to refute.
There is an obtuse parallel to OJ Simpson in fact. Simpson reportedly told Nichole he was going to kill her and he would get off because nobody would believe it and he almost did until his stupidity got him jailed on unrelated charges. He also went down because everybody knew he killed his ex-wife. How crazy do you have to be to throw away the life OJ Simpson had?

The average guy can't conceive of the mentality of these guys. They are created basically. Their talent elevates them to being above the law and goes to their head because of how they are treated. Also, perfectionism is a slippery slope and I even see parallels between Woods and Michael Jackson...both prodigies who lost their way and driven by their parents with no childhood...but too much of a digression.

hueyhoolihan

did jackson wear his glove on the left hand?

Leinster

I didn't suspect right from the start. His first Tour win was a pleasant surprise, but I agree with Lemond's 2001 quote about it;

"When Lance won the prologue to the 1999 Tour I was close to tears, but when I heard he was working with Michele Ferrari I was devastated. In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm disappointed in Lance, that's all it is."

I had more of a drip-feed of revelation moments, but as smoke gathered around Lance, it became more and more clear that there was a fire somewhere.

Campag4life

The thing I will never understand and perhaps yourself or somebody can explain it a bit and what made me believe in the early days that Lance raced clean relates to his cancer. He was basically on death's door. I could not fathom how anybody that close to death would ever dope because of the grave consequences. In fact, some speculate he contracted cancer to begin with because of the foreign substances he put in his body. Hard to know. But...to dope after beating back cancer...not knowing if this deadly disease would re-emerge if best health practices were not employed and even then, seems to be the pure definition of insanity. Maybe somebody can help me separate cancer and his doping after he came back from it. That is one of the biggest reasons I didn't think it was feasible he doped because I didn't think anybody in his right mind would do it.

Curtis Odom 

I had the pleasure/torture of having raced with both Greg and Lance when they were young. Greg Lemond was so superior to LA as to offer no comparison. I knew LA much better having worked for his Triathlon sponsor. I rode with him, raced against him, traveled with him (races, trade shows, wind tunnel, etc), worked on his bikes, etc... I can tell you that it was not a pleasurable experience. LA lived in the San Diego north county areas (Vista, San Marcos, Escondido) for about three years, Lemond was also in the same area renting a beach house in Carlsbad for many winters. Greg was an introverted sweet guy who would always give you the time of day if you met him on the road, LA was always anything but nice unless you were a money person or had something he needed.

Campag4life

Lemond was on CNN a while back being interviewed by Anderson Cooper. Lemond said that Lance was no better than a top 20 rider when he was coming up. He said he was a decent cyclist but far from a dominant one aka referring to himself. He said it was clear to him because he knew of Lance's talent level that the only way he could dominate the TdF like he did in consecutive years is if he cheated.
To me, Lemond is smarter than he comes off on TV. I found his comments on CNN particularly lucid during this interview. He made a lot of sense but I know a bit about cycling. Pretty cool you had the talent Curtis to hang in the elite crowd...I sure don't. As you say, Lemond doesn't craven the lime light like Lance always did. Bottom line is Lemond had more talent as a cyclist and he knew it and possibly Lance knew it as well.

Leinster

Maybe he figured that since epo was, essentially, a natural hormone, that there couldn't possibly be any ill effects? That a blood bag was no more likely to cause cancer than a transfusion? Those seem to have been his ped of choice post-cancer and I can't imagine anyone telling him they were a bad thing (except morally, of course).

Besides which, I'd have to reckon he probably just didn't care. It's the old question that comes up again and again in surveys of elite athletes; if you could take this magic pill and win an Olympic medal at 25 and die at 30 would you do it? And you have to look at Lance's career and his drive to win at all costs and say yup, he's the guy that would do it.

Campag4life

I believe you got is just right...though I am not sure about check out age being 30. I thought the decision was more like taking 10 years off an athlete's life for taking performance enhancing drugs and many would chose the fame and fortune for those ten years. And we know from football and the WWF that athlete's have cut their lives way short in some instances.

I believe as part of cancer therapy, Lance may have taken EPO legally...or I read that some place.

whitemax

That's always been my theory, that his cancer was caused by the PEDS he was using in the 90's. Surgically remove the cancer and turn off the faucet and there's the cure. So perhaps the cocktail in those days was more like testosterone and who knows what. Post cancer, more was known about what worked and what was safer, like as you mentioned EPO and blood transfusions. If you watch his post race interviews in the '99 Tour, it was almost like he had a hard time explaining how good he had gotten. In later years, he came off as more polished and confident in what he was doing.

Leinster

To be clear, I don't think there's any evidence whatsoever that whatever Lance was doping with in 95 led to his cancer diagnosis in 96. If that were probable, you'd have pro athletes keeling over here there and everywhere. There's an assumption that something must have "caused" a cancer, but some people do just get cancer and there was nothing they could have done.

And I think that's part of why he didn't feel any concern about doping afterwards. "Maybe the HGH/steroids/testosterone contributed to the cancer, maybe it didn't. Who knows? I know they make me faster, I'm gonna go win some races."

whitemax

Of course it could never be proven that the PEDs caused his cancer versus his "just getting cancer" but given he reportedly had such a small chance of surviving it, I believe it's plausible that once the drugs stopped, the cancer stopped it's progression. Some say it caused Fignon' demise.

AlexanderMG

I thought there was some speculation that it wasn't just your run-of-the-mill doping suite of products that may or may not have contributed to cancer, but other, less accessible blood doping products still in clinical trials. HemAssist in particular...

Campag4life

Other thing I will add about Leinster's other atheletes contracting cancer taking the same performance drugs as a sign that the drugs may have caused his cancer theory...not necessarily so. The reality is each of us could take the same substances and maybe only a small subset would contract cancer with the same dosage of illegal drugs. This is because each of our cells respond differently. Lance may of had a pre-disposition or sensitivity to triggers for his cancer and ingesting certain drugs triggered it. I do agree with Leinster that Lance perceived taking EPO was considered a low risk and likely why he used it post cancer. But still astounding that someone on death's door would continue to pump foreign substances into his body after being near death. Speaks to just how driven he was to win....at all costs.

calamarichris

Notice all the Lance fanbois (the same fanbois who called the greatest American cycling champion in history a "crybaby", "obese", or worse) are the ones who are eager to move on.
I was disappointed to learn Armstrong still had 10 million to lose in his recent lawsuit. Dude still needs to be broke, and broken as far as I'm concerned. (WTF--blames his drunken bumpercar episode on his gf?!)

Spacepuppy

I don't see how anybody can say LeMond is a jerk. He told the truth and stuck to it. The lance lovers must really really be hurt after their hero let them down. Having a REAL champion and a better PERSON they sullied for years be right must be too much to get over. Wow, true love I guess! Also, being an avid fan of the sport for 30+ years I can't recall anybody ever speaking ill of LeMond as a person, while the stories of his kindness and generosity abound.