> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > I don't think other cyclists are losing to Lance in Le Tour because they're not >training hard. Apart from being the best cyclist in the world, Lance points toward >the Tour more than anyone else, it seems. Has he done the Giro (Tour of Italy) at all >before the previous four Tours? Lance will be the first to name Eddy Merkcx (sp?) as >the greatest of all time, because he won everything, not just 5 Tours. He won the >Giro, the Vuelta (Tour of Spain), the winter classics, the fall classics, the World >Championships, etc. Sure, the Tour is the biggest and best, but I think it's a shame >when the top athletes only point toward the one big race. Ron Clarke was so great >because he raced everywhere and anywhere all year. > > I did read an interesting article about how Lance's higher pedaling cadence is being >adopted by other riders and has been shown by research to be more effiicent. A slower >cadence (on a tougher gear) builds up more occlusion (intra-muscular) pressure, >making it harder for oxygen to enter and wastes to leave the muscles. > > sideshow
First of all, regarding some previous comments, Lance's french is fairly decent, at least for the past year or two he has been making an effort to speak to the french press (in french) after stages, often before giving interview to OLN crew. I think that while there was some initial resentment (how would americans feel if french beat them in basketball or baseball?), the attitude has shifted towards positive in the past couple of years. The anti-Lance french sentiment has been over-reported, perhaps simply because it makes a great story (A Texan vs. snobby french). He may never be as popular as Jalabert, but he is still a hero to many french fans - and you can see it in tour coverage by reaction from french spectators. Lance is certainly better accepted than most spanish or italian riders over there. As to "Dopey" comments - I feel that incident has been over-hyped as well. There will always be some crazy fan yelling something and there will be some doping accusations - amazingly enough most recent ones came from "60 minutes", does it mean he is universally hated in US? I am not buying the argument that Lance has to win Giro and Vuelta before he is considered one of the greats. It often comes from the same people who would argue that it's Lance's devotion to details (such as riding over key mountain stages of upcoming Tour in training many times before he "gets it right") that makes him so great at the Tour and that other riders should try to copy this single-focused training from Lance, instead of simply riding themselves into shape over spring classics. There was a number of different reasons for why Lance's TdF wins are some sort of a fluke - first the favorites weren't present, then they were all there, but he didn't win the stage, well, not until the very end, then he won a bunch of stages but now we also want him to win other key Tours. You don't see that many podium finishers at the Tour aiming for a podium in Vuelta or Giro - the Tour is hard enough nowadays. In track and field, it's like asking Khannouchi to set world records year-around at all kinds of distances, instead of peaking for one (or two) marathons a year (and would he still be the best marathoner of the year if he didn't race Chicago - based solely on his London win over Tergat and Geb in a world best?) or claiming that Gebrselassie should never be considered as great as Nurmi or Zatopek unless he can win 5,000m, 10,000m and a marathon in the same Olympics, or that ElGuerrouj should set WRs in 800 to be as great as Coe. Oleg.
