The mithical one, gone a year ago! Could Armstrong have beaten him in 99? - Page 2

I guess this is one example of the difficulty of being a celebrity, and that is to always have to consider your actions as they are seen by the fans. You see, Armstrong has a special relationship with Basso which is beyond the confines of the sport of cycling. I am not going to say what that is out of respect for Basso, who has asked the press for privacy in this matter, but if you want to do a google search, you will see Basso's name in the news recently, in fact, very recently.

In this context, your statements here are in very bad taste. However, I have read enough from you in the past to know that you have no intention of doing this. You don't realize that your comments are very disrespectful. It's a shame that the need for privacy can work against a rider in a situation like this. I think you will agree with me; this is a tragedy. I don't fault you for having the view you had. It seems logical. The fact that it is inappropriate is not at all evident on the surface.

Sorry, yeah, I read about Basso and the bereavement of his mother - so yes, it would be understandable that they would be talking.

I was simply making a point about competitors chatting -
It was more an observation about how benign the peloton has become when compared to the old days (or maybe I've got the rose tinted glasses on !).

No disrespect was intended to Basso or indeed Armstrong in this instance.

Certainly it is good for competitors to be sporting and to have respect for each other. It is even good if they are friends and help each other out when not racing. When I referred to "exchanges" I was more referring to the reciprocal cooperation of exchanging the lead to augment their advantage over the peleton. I understand it technically, but much prefer a race where pretenders to the throne do not engage in such pacts with the royalty.
In response to Gtlmn, you may be right that Armstrong would win in 99. However you are basing on what was seen in the direct confrontation between Pantani and Armstrong in 2000. Like I say, Pantani of 1999 was stronger than 1998 and significantly stronger than the Pantani of 2000 with all his problems. Also a tour de france winner can generate or command more investment into his team the following year, so these are all factors that would have made this particular confrontation very interesting.

True about the investment in the following year, but please enlighten me. I don't recall Pantani having near the time trialing skills, even in his best year, of the best of the peloton, namely Lance. Maybe you might point to a race or two where he demonstrates this. I haven't seen it.

As I stated earlier, he was a joy to watch in the mountains. He had a certain style of riding that made him look invincible in the mountains, yet he was about the same as Lance is on the climbs. Marco seemed to do it with more flair. If he was better than Lance, it was only marginally on the climbs.

About the same as LA as a climber ?
Marginally better ?
Perhaps time has faded your memory.
As a climber, Pantani was without equal.

His back to back victories in the 1995 Tour de France (D'Huez and Niege) were phenomenal.
No one could live with him.
Indurain, no mean climber himself, in the book "Indurain - a life on wheels" says on page 165 "If I tried to follow Pantani (today) I would burst !"

Page 166 "who could live with Pantani, today" he says rhethorically.
Les Deux Alpes in the 1998 Jan Ullrich said "Pantani shows that he is in a different class than the rest of us. There was no way to reign him in - one moment he's there but as soon as the road goes up, he's gone"

Armstrong - well we know he couldn't climb between 1992-1996 and now he's, err, an all time great.
That's of course if you take what you see at face value - which I don't.

Well certainly Marco Pantani was never a great time trialist but if you remember in the 98 tour there came the decisive time trial with Ullrich at Le Creusot, Ullrich finished first, Julich second, and Pantani third at 2’ 35” . This is superb effort when you consider also that Ekimov (an Olympic time trial champion from Sydney) finished sixth at 3’48 from Ullrich. In my opinion then, Pantani in 99 was so much stronger than 98, and therefore would be able to defend himself adequately on the time trials. And Armstrong would not have been able to hold his wheel in the mountains.

Sheesh! You judge Pantani's performances as if they were completely legitimate though he was caught doping. Then you judge Armstrong's performances as if they are tainted though he has not been caught doping. You are so freaking biased it is comical.

Pantani was never caught doping. No banned substance, never a hint of doping. He was a great climber even as a young cyclist. Did you not read the threads? Even if he had a truly high hematocrit June 5th 1999(I give more than a few reasons for doubting that measurement), how many riders are now consistently riding above the 50 ceiling with permission slips. That is to say there was no definitive test for epo at that time.

Armstrong is for me a great champion. He does not excite me as did Pantani.

So are you saying that LA could climb between 1992-1996 ?

I suppose that's why he abandoned 3 out of 4 T'sDF.

Pantani was a great climber from day one.
He didn't, err, "improve" like Armstrong did.

Great Tour de France racers make for boring Tour de France's. Boring may not quite be the correct term to use as the Tour de France is a exciting race anytime. Maybe predictable is the correct term.....
...... Remember Indurain ?????? Just as predictable as the last 5TDF's.........
I do not think that Pantani would have won any more Tour de France"s, but he sure would have made for more exciting races...... The peloton needs more guys like him....... His life turned out to be tragedy, but he should be remembered for his fierce attacking in the mountains .. Lance Armstrong did not intimidate him and I doubt if Eddy would have either......
Pantani knew he had to attack Lance in the mountains..... He was not going to win any time in the flats. He was a champion because he understood that 2nd place was more humiliating then last place.......
I believe Pantani would have had his hands full of Jan too ...... For the same reasons Pantani had with Lance....
I hate the fact that the TT , individual or team has such an importance in the Tour de France........ We need the Pantani's , the Zabels, the Sean Kellys to have an more important role in the Tour de France...... Not the TT specialists.

It would have been exciting if Claudio Chiappucci and Pantani would have been on form in the same Tour or Giro .... That would have been a race. in the mountains....

I MISS MARCO PANTANI!!!!!!

I guess when you're 171 cm and weigh in at 56 kg, it's pretty hard to "improve" any more by losing weight, is it? He'd be losing some of the muscle he needs to get up those hills. Lance, on the other hand, had quite a bit extra muscle to lose, and with a higher cadence and still adequate muscle mass after losing something like 8 kg, he was able to shift the burden from his less ample leg muscles to his cardio system. So it doesn't take much brains to figure out how he improved so much. In America, we call this a no-brainer. Holmes might have said, "elementary, my dear Watson."

It's a no-brainer when you fail to consider that his "improvement" is more likely to be attributed to PED.

Even after reading LA's explanation for his "improvement" which you recite verbatim (see above), doesn't it make you wonder why so many people still don't believe his (your) explanation for his "improvement" ?

So what you're saying is that you cannot see that he lost a lot of weight. To me that is evident from the photos. I don't even have to see what the scales read before and after. The difference is dramatic. If you ignore this fact, then it is you who are fooling yourself. That you have many LA haters who will side with you doesn't diminish the evidence in front of your eyes. If you choose not to believe the evidence in front of your eyes, then you might as well be living in the world of make believe.

I know this personally ....... I was a competitive wrestler [not the WWW kind] back in the 70's and had a heavily muscled body frame ..... I took up road cycling , worked extremely hard on my cadence, and then over a period of 2 years lost over 10% of my body weight....... This happened even though I came from a national class wrestling program where weight loss was a religion ...... When I started traing for the track several years later I gained back more then I lost ........
Lance , going through chemo lost muscle mass..... Take a walk thru a cancer ward...... And with planned training he came back to the sport with a definite improved cadence and a different muscle mass......

I believe that the euro's are far advanced in training methods and what it takes to win the Tour de France then what is available in the USA ......
Did he have a different training coaches to help his comeback ???? His body type can be debated , but his heart and lungs cannot be ..... And his desire ..... Remember the Worlds in 1993???? On that particular day , he was the finest cyclist in the world ....... I believe he acheived a important goal at an earlier age then Eddy , a goal that Sean Kelly was unable to ever complete, and something very few cyclists ever achieve.......
Does Lance have a work ethic ???? I do not believe that is something he made up just to sell his book ....... He is an aggressive individual ,on and off the bike, something that is pretty common in great champions ...... If you look at all the Tour de France champions in the last 20 years , except for Indurain , everyone of them has the personality of a dominator ..... None of them are willing to settle for 2nd place in anything in life......