1989 World Cycling Championships Finish

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1989 World Cycling Championships Finish

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[kvmusic]

dipstick yourself.

i suggest YOU watch the video (providing you know which one i am talking about. Lejaretta and Vandervelde are cooked but Boyer is still doing fine. however Lemond makes is move past L and V with Saronni right in his wheel.

he had 2 other options, give Boyer a little more chance or let Saronni make the move and pass him in the final meters.

[kvmusic]

oleo36,

we were not talking about 1989 here, we were talking about 1982.

lemond was a better tour racer, kelly was a better classic racer. lemond did get a few one day race wins (2 world championships, which is amazing). kelly won a lot of tours, 7 paris-nice, 1 vuelta, 2 tours de suisse.

if you compare their palmares, kelly is WAY above lemond. there is just no comparison. kelly beat lemond many times in the classics. also, kelly rode all year, lemond did not. anyway, they were both great.

[jean silvas]

all the sports winners are drugged, the difference between the pros in any sport and iemensly talented people who also train hard is just too big a top 40k tt average speed for a superb rider is 40kph for the pros 52 or 53 kph, if you on epo it is just so much easier to ride those wattages, no matter how big the clean guys engine is.

[tiehut]

I still prefer downtube shifters just like this video.

[gedalia3]

You said it in the first par. Lemond was the better tour racer. But with w World's not sure you can call Kelly even a better classics rider. And their impact on the sport? Not close. LeMond all the way. And remember LeMond really had two careers, first exclusively as a support rider for Fignon and Hinault, and then when he became a tour rider is when he stopped riding all season.

[Jim Mac]

The part that doesn't fit the profile for me is the anti-doping zealotry. Most of the people defending/excusing LA's doping are dopers in cycling or in my boxing furum, lol. And it's probably much more possible for a great motor to have beaten dopers in the pre-EPO era. You talked me into ordering Kimmage's book though. Sounds interesting. Amazon talked me into 2 more.

[TC2drumlist]

You're starting from the certainty that he was clean then fitting the facts around it, which is exactly what Lance's remaining supporters still do. "if he'd used X then he would have used Y" is an argument without any basis (other than that you'd like it to be true). If you haven't already, read Paul Kimmage's "Rough Ride". He talks about his eventual doping, and Fignon admitted using stimulants and painkillers. Both said they didn't use EPO though, so where does that leave your theory?

[Jim Mac]

I'm not confused about the timeline, lol. When the ETs dropped dramatically Lemond was no longer competitive. And it still stands to reason that if he used amphetamines he would've used the much more effective blood/oxygen booster when it became necessary. I will have to concede to your basic point though: You can't be certain of anything unless they are busted.

[grindupBaker]

What's the gradient ?

[TC2drumlist]

I think you must be confused. Greg's PDM team-mate Johannes Draaijer died from EPO use in 1988. "At the onset of the EPO era" Greg Lemond was kicking everyone's butts, including all the riders who've admitted they were doping. You're also mixing up "clean" with "not using EPO". I wouldn't describe riders taking cocktails of steroids, stimulants and painkillers as "clean", and Greg dominated that era when that was what you did.

Greg never failed a test, and that's the most you can honestly say.

[Jim Mac]

If guys like Lemond & Hampsten were going to dope at all then they would have done it at the onset of the EPO era when dopers were kicking their butts. And I knew basically what LA was up to about 10 years ago. Cycling on the lower 40 doesn't make a climber. No judgement here. I'd have probably done the same if I had the motor.

[TC2drumlist]

So in May '89 Lemond was being dropped by domestiques on the climbs of the Giro. A few weeks later he's dropping everyone on TdF climbs. Then at the Worlds he leads out known dopers like Kelly, Fignon and Clavyrolat and just pedals away from them.

Surely if there's one thing LA has taught us, it's that "never failed a test" and talking a good game about doping means nothing. You can never say a rider was clean, just that they were never caught. Lemond was one of the greats. Leave it at that.