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You're kidding right?
Greg Lemond had world championship winning form dating back to his teens, rode his first tour as the reigning world champion, and finished 3rd riding as support for laurent fignon.
He finished 2nd the year after, riding as support for bernard hinault.
He finished 2nd in the world road race the same year.
He won in 1986, with bernard hinault as his main rival.
How does that form look 'dodgy' ?
As compared to Lance Armstrong, who struggled to even finish the tour ( 3xDNF and a 36th place finish) until he started working with Michele Ferrari, whereupon he subsequently won the tour seven times in a row?
I found this the other night, a bit long winded, and not much fun if you're colour blind, but the performance analysis paints an informative picture of tour riders performance's over the last 20 years.
I'll paraphrase the conclusions for anyone who can't be bothered to read it all:
1 It looks like Greg Lemond was right all along.
2 Lance Armstrong clearly wasn't the only cheat in the 1999-2010 period, he was just better at cheating than everybody else.
3 Generous to a fault, LA apparently shared his 'knowledge' with his team-mates, especially Discovery (2005)
Saddeningly, Miguel Indurain's stats are nearly as bad as those of Lance Armstrong.
Still, at least it looks like the sport is cleaning itself up these days. |
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