Luigi de Guzman <
[email protected]> writes:
> On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 17:07:45 -0500, Tim McNamara
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Of course, for the entire field to have to compete against Miguel
>>Indurain and then Lance Armstrong is also an issue, these guys have
>>been unusually dominant. I think in part that's due to having been
>>very specialized to compete in the Tour primarily, as the Tour
>>continues to outweigh the entire rest of the racing calendar in
>>importance. From 1986 to 2003, there were, what, 13 Tours won by
>>three racers (Lemond, Indurain, Armstrong) and a scattering of tours
>>won by Roche, Delgado, Pantani, Ullrich, Riis. If we start from
>>1990, there's been only 5 winners of the Tour.
>
> True...but didn't Lemond used to race more of the classics back in
> the day than Armstrong does now?
He did up until the gun shot wound and then after that had to narrow
his focus. He also did more races than Armstrong does; Armstrong
tends to do highly focused training rides rather than races, and
pretty much stops racing after the Tour. Lemond raced both the Spring
and Fall Classics campaigns, even when he wasn't in shape to be
competitive.
From the beginning of his career, though, Lemond excelled in stage
races- 3rd overall in the Tour de Tarn and 4th overall in the
Dauphine-Libere as a neo-pro in 1981, for example. He won the Tour de
l'Avenir in 1982 with 3 stage wins, 2nd overall in the Tour de
Mediteraneen, 3rd overall in Tirreno-Adriatico. 1983 was his
breakthrough year with the World Road Championship, overall in the
Dauphine-Libere, 4th overall in Tour de Suisse, 2nd in Grand Prix des
Nations, 4th in Blois-Chauville (Paris-Tours in reverse, IIRC) and 2nd
inthe Tour of Lombardy. At that point it looked like he could be at
the top in just about any type of race.
After he was shot on April 20th, 1987, Lemond's career changed. He
was out almost all of 1987 and much of 1988. 1989 was a good year-
winning the Tour de France and 3 stages, the World Road Champs- but
there is a drop-off in the quality of his other placings in major
races. He did manage a couple of top-10 placings in Paris-Roubaix (I
think taking 4th the first year that Duclos-LaSalle won), but in
general he was not at the top except in the Tour in 1990 and the
World's that year (4th). This trend continued, with his last victory
being in 1992 at the Tour DuPont. He retired in 1994 after spending
much of the year as a back marker when he did race. ISTR that he
dropped out of the Tour and did not in fact race again after that.
Armstrong, of course, was seen as a Classics rider in his early career
pre-cancer. He won several one-day races, the Worlds in 1993, Flech
Wallone in 1996 (?) and a couple of TdF stages- one dramatic one in
the wake of the death of Fabio Casartelli in 1995 (IIRC). Lance was a
hothead and a very emotional rider, but inconsistent. Armstrong's
body was too massive from his years of swimming and triathlon to be
competitive in the high mountains, though. He lost much of that mass
(something like 10 kg) during his episode with metastatic cancer, and
on his return to racing seemed to have lost something of his sprint
but gained in climbing, time trialling and perhaps most importantly in
emotional control and maturity.
Personally, I think Armstrong is a little too calculating. His
single-minded focus on the Tour de France is detrimental to the sport,
in my opinion, and he is not alone in that focus. The importance of
the Tour is highly over-rated (also IMHO) and this too is detrimental
to the sport as a whole. It creates two classes of riders, the Tour
contenders and everyone else. But perhaps the days of a Merckx, a
Hinault- riders able to win any race anywhere- are gone for reasons
beyond simply the racers. (Of course, this is all written as an
American; in the mainstream media, there is no coverage of
professional bicycle racing other than the Tour de France. And
without Lance Armstrong or some other charismatic American, there
wouldn't even be that).