Originally posted by Memphmann
Yes you are correct. I can not stand LA. He is a disgrace to cycling. Only attempting to win one major race. What about the other stage races, Worlds, Spring Classics? He is a weak seasonal racer.
Of coarse he would congrat Tyler. Easy to do when he is not on his team stealing his thunder. Would like have seen the look on LA's face if Tyler would have won the TdF......
Memph
Memph,
You should check out the spring classics a little more carefully, I think you will find that Armstrong has tried pretty hard to win some of those races which in the end are all about being in the right break at the right time and not getting a flat or crashing at the wrong moment. He came 8th in the Amstel Gold Race this year, 20th in the Liege-Bastogne-Liege and looked like a possible winner until the last 7Km, won the Dauphine Libere stage race, came 2nd in one stage of the tour of Murcia and won the Criterium in Graz at the end of the season. His UCI ranking is 8th for 2003 and that includes ALL the world cup races so he couldn't have done too badly in any of them. Just for comparison, Ulrich was ranked 15th and Hamilton 11th. Check out this site: for info about how the rankings are calculated:
http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=5148. Also, in the past he's also won the San Sebastian and has done well in the Zurich Meisterschaft, Tour of Spain and Tour of Switzerland (2nd in 2001). So the results should speak for themselves. BTW, what spring classics did Ullrich win? And Hamilton won Liege-Bastogne-Liege but what else? What other major stage races did these other guys win?? Where was Ullrich at the Worlds (which btw Armstrong has won in the past)?
I like Armstrong, I also admire Ullrich and Tyler Hamilton. Who is the better rider? That is a tough one to answer. All three are great athletes all three are great climbers and Armstrong and Ullrich are great time trialers with Hamilton improving. I think you have to look at the results. When Armstrong is fit he is the best of the three at time trials and climbing. Hamilton is probably a better climber than Ullrich. Ullrich could certainly be better if he would change his style and not try to push such big gears up the hills. I disagree with what Kathrin said about Ullrich climbing like Indurain, it is rather Armstrong who was inspired by the style of Indurain (smaller gears and higher cadence in the mountains) and he has said so in the past. Ullrich climbs like a lot of other climbers bigger gears and lower cadence, sitting in the saddle to conserve energy and avoid going anaerobic. That is why Armstrong wins in the mountains because he is simply the rider whose body uses oxygen the most efficiently allowing him to use more energy to climb out of the saddle for enough time to distance everyone else.
Tyler Hamilton and Armstrong are clearly friends, look at the way Tyler reacted when Armstrong went cyclocross in the Tour and again after he crashed on the Luz Ardiden stage (rode herd on the other riders until Armstrong rejoined the group). Look at the way Armstrong congratulated Hamilton for his win on Stage 16. Hamilton stated publicly that when he was asked to join CSC he sought and got the blessings of Armstrong. Sorry for the conspiracy theorists out there but Hamilton was not pushed out, he just outgrew US Postal.
If YOU had a chance to make history as the only rider ever to win the greatest stage race in the world 6 times in a row, would you risk everything on a relatively unimportant spring race where a crash could ruin your entire season? I think not. Armstrong has said it before. The Giro is not the Tour de France, the Vuelta is not the Tour de France... So if you can win this race more times than anyone else what is the point of winning all the others? Just to silence a few critics who know little about modern bicycle racing? Racing has changed a lot and for the better since the days of Merckx, the last great rider who could win everything. The leaders do not control the peloton, therefore there are many more breakaways, the average speed is much higher for the Tour etc. I'll bet that the great Eddy himself would not be able to win as many races if he were racing today.
Wad (of love).