"Bob Schwartz" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Bruce Johnston <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > "Carl Sundquist" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
> >
news:[email protected]...
> >>
> >> Jeannie is as a woman athlete incredible. In the middle of the 80s I
got
> > interested in
> >> cycling. Who were the stars those days? Hinault, Fignon, Lemond, Moser,
> > Saronni, Argentin,
>
> >> .... and one woman: Jeannie Longo.
>
> > I am only going to say one negative thing here. One women yeah, Some would argue that the depth
> > of the womens field
wasn't
> > that good bad then. She didn't have enough competition and competed
against
> > mostly amatuers. That said, she retired because she was bored early on,
that
> > shows just how she stood head and shoulders above the rest. If she won
that
> > easily she either had not enough competition or she was quite an
athlete. I
> > tend to think the truth is somewhere in the middle.
>
> The length of Longo's career contradicts this. This was true in 1979 when
she
> scored her first top ten finish. The top levels of women's racing had top athletes but many of
> them, like Connie Carpenter and Beth Heiden, were
there
> as a result of efforts in other sports.
>
> The entry of women's racing into the Olympics in 1984 changed all that,
and
> note that 1984 is still well towards the front end of Longo's career.
Women
> still don't have the depth of talent that men have as we've recently seen
in
> San Francisco. But the top levels have seen excellent competition ever
since
> the early 80s. You could see that in the results from US women. Great
results
> at worlds were much more common in the 70s when there was not much
international
> interest in supporting women racers. Once other nations began to devote
more
> resources to developing talent the US placings became much thinner.
>
> LVM's run in Sydney was pretty amazing. But I think Longo's victory in
Atlanta
> is one of the most impressive single races in Olympic cycling history. It
is
> a shame that NBC did such a hack job on the TV coverage. Longo won in a
true
> Merckx style, by just riding off into the distance. She was just that much stronger than the rest
> of the field and there was nothing to be done to
stop
> her.
The gold had eluded her for so long in her career. Well earned.
>
> Bob Schwartz
[email protected]