Greg Lemond, Lance Armstong, Eddie Mercxx

saherring

While I admire Lance Armstrong for being able to win 6 Tours de France, he could not have done it without a very good team. Greg Lemond only won 3, but when he be Laurent Finyon by 89 seconds, he only had 2 team mates left in the race for most of the last week of racing. I wonder how Armstrong would have done if this were the case for him. Also, he is undoubtly the best Tour de France racer ever, but would he have been able to win 6 if he had riden at least one of the other tours several of those years. I believe that Eddie Mercxx won 2 major tours in the same season on several occasions, not to mention that he won 525 races in his career. While I am an Armstrong fan, I do not consider him the greatest cyclist ever, or even the greatest Grand Tour rider ever...Just the greatest TDF rider. WHAT DO YOU THINK ?

tcklyde

No one is going to question that Merckx is the greatest ever.

Postal has definitely helped LA recently, but 1999 and 2000 were nothing like 2004.

At some point, dividing up into ever smaller categories get pointless. Bäckstedt is the greatest Paris-Roubaix winner in the last year, but so what? Cycling has changed alot over 100 years. You can't really compare apples and oranges. Is the world champion the real world champion? Will the winner of the ProTour be the best cyclist? How do you compare Cipo to LA. Or even Cipo to Zabel? Coppi only won two Tours but five Giros. Is he better than Indurain who doubled up twice?

Good riders, all three of them you mentioned. But other than Merckx, who won everything, there's just not a lot of way or reason to get into best of this or that.

IMHO, at least.

__________________
Harry

mitosis

Merckx didn't just win the tour a couple of times.

Eddie Merckx won 11 grand tours. He won all three jerseys in the Tour de france in the same year. He would have won a 6th tour de france had he not been punched in the kidneys by a "fan". He still managed to come second.

He won Paris-Roubaix 3 times, Milan san remo 7 times, 5 liege bastogne liege, 2 tours of lombardy, 2 tours of belgium, 32 other international classics not to mention the hour record.

Read this: http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200407/s1162272.htm

Then there is Bernard the Badger, "Big Mig" Indurain or "Maitre" Jacques Anquetil?

Lance who?

micron

Fausto Coppi:

1940 Giro d'Italia
1 stage, Giro d'Italia
1941 Giro dell'Emilia
Tre Valli Varesine
Giro del Veneto
1942 Hour Record - 45.798km
1946 Milan - San Remo
Tour of Lombardy
Grand Prix des Nations
3 stages, Giro d'Italia
Unofficial Season-Long Competition (see Season long competitions page)
1947 Giro d'Italia
3 stages, Giro d'Italia
Tour of Lombardy
Grand Prix des Nations
Giro dell'Emilia
Giro del Veneto
1 stage, Tour of Switzerland
1948 Milan - San Remo
Tour of Lombardy
Giro dell'Emilia
Tre Valli Varesine
KoM, Giro d'Italia
2 stages, Giro d'Italia
1949 Tour de France
KoM, Tour de France
3 stages, Tour de France
Giro d'Italia
KoM, Giro d'Italia
3 stages, Giro d'Italia
Milan - San Remo
Tour of Lombardy
Giro del Veneto
Desgrange-Colombo Trophy
1950 Paris - Roubaix
Flèche Wallone
1951 1 stage, Tour de France
2 stages, Giro d'Italia
1952 Tour de France
KoM, Tour de France
5 stages, Tour de France
Giro d'Italia
3 stages, Giro d'Italia
1953 Giro d'Italia
3 stages, Giro d'Italia
World Pro Road Race
Trofeo Angelo Baracchi, with Riccardo Filippi
1954 Milan - San Remo
Tour of Lombardy
KoM, Giro d'Italia
1 stage, Giro d'Italia
KoM, Tour of Switzerland
2 stages, Tour of Switzerland
Trofeo Angelo Baracchi, with Riccardo Filippi
1955 Tre Valli Varesine
Trofeo Angelo Baracchi, with Riccardo Filippi
1 stage, Giro d'Italia
1957 Trofeo Angelo Baracchi, with Ercole Baldini

Notice the 4 year gap for WWII - and Coppi still has one more GT win than Armstrong (including 2 GT doubles)

mitosis

My sincerest apologies. It was a crime to leave Coppi out.

I assume that most Lance supporters have a limited knowledge of cycling. Limited to the last 6 T's de F.

DiabloScott

Good god, the variations on this topic are infinitely and nauseatingly banal.

__________________


http://diabloscott.blogspot.com

micron

soory, didn't realise an appreciation of the traditions and history of the sport and its truly great champions was infinitely and nauseatingly banal - sorry, must say 12 'hail Armstrongs' and several 'our Disco full of grace'

DiabloScott

"Well, now you know." (said Mr. Stoller to son Dave)

The freshman (American) newb comes on a forum like this and asks how Armstrong rates in the names of cycling's greats.

The junior tifoso comes on and berates the newb for thinking anyone could even sniff Eddy's chamois.

This endless "cycle" has been played out at least a trillion times over these and other boards.

__________________


http://diabloscott.blogspot.com

micron

so the American newb must be fed the brainless 'Armstrong is the Greatest Ever' line to placate them - you assume they are so ignorant, insular and uninterested in anything else in the sport aside from Armstrong and the Tour de France that they wouldn't like to find out something about the history of the sport and other riders - to be better informed and better able to argue their position? The original poster clearly stated their position and asked others for their opinions - if you're not interested, why not butt out?

brettem

You may be right but it is normal for people to follow what they know.

I can remember hearing about (and seeing) Mercxx a couple of times near the end of his career as a small kid. But when I actually took up cycling more seriously Indurain was all over the place before Lemond's surprise. Armstrong's determination is great and to become a speciallist in the TdF with six wins is amazing. I didn't learn about others like Coppi until much later.

So of them Indurain had the greatest effect on me (but I still can't climb hills) and is, I suppose, my "favourite". Of course being from down under means that Armstrong doesn't have a chance with me. The green jersey win is of course the most important in the TdF (go Robbie).

And this year we might even do ok in the GC with Vengls et al.

DiabloScott

No... I deduce from their banal questions that they are so ignorant, insular, and unintersted that they don't bother to peruse the forums (or any other resource) before they post another trite poll about a subject that's been hashed to fuckin death.

Move on or roll over.

__________________


http://diabloscott.blogspot.com

mitosis

As are posters who think cycling is limited to the T de F and LA. Nothing wrong with giving people a little information so they can make informed judgements.

They, like you, can then chose to leave their head buried in the sand or be informed. Simple really.

DiabloScott

Like ME? I'm complaining about the same people you are. My point was they should get informed BEFORE they make yet another post comparing Lance to any of the great ones especially Eddy. It's not like the information isn't available - but they seem to think they've got a thought-provoking question when really they're clueless.

__________________


http://diabloscott.blogspot.com

JohnO

An essential point has been missed. Whether Lance wins because he is backed up with a disciplined team (partially true), whether he wins on physical ability (partially true), or whether he wins on shrewd tactics (partially true) doesn't really matter. It's a complete package. You need the right combination of all of the above.

The fact is - he figured out the winning formula, and no one else has, for six years. These 'he wouldn't win 6 TDF's if he also rode every weekend club crit in the world' arguments are irrelevant. He figured out how to put himself in the position where he could put most of his focus into the one big race. And no one else has. Same goes for the 'he wouldn't win if he didn't have such a good team to back him up' statements. He figured out how to get that dedicated team, and no one else has.

Despite the thousand or so variations that people can come up with, the fact remains - Lance achieved what no one else could, because he figured out what it takes, when no one else could.

Stop looking for excuses, and start figuring out how to beat him, before he retires.