cartsman wrote:
tridork wrote:
Jason80134 wrote:
Without the cheating, Armstrong would not have the money he has. So I'm happy to see him part with all of it.If everyone was clean, including Lance, he'd have won.
Not necessarily. Not everybody gets the same benefit from doping e.g. somebody who naturally had high haematocrit levels would get less benefit from EPO than somebody who had naturally lower ones. And not everybody was on the same doping programme. Some of Armstrong's team-mates have said that he got a lot of benefit from doping (whereas Hincapie reportedly got not so much). And certainly Armstrong seems to have had the most professional doping programme.
So you can't simply say that a doped Lance beating a doped field means that a clean Lance would have beaten a clean field. Maybe his intelligence, competitiveness and single-mindedness would have got him some wins anyway, or maybe there were riders out there who in the absence of doping had more natural talent than him and would have beaten him. No way of knowing for sure either way.
My basis for saying he'd have won without doping was his past. His national tri champ, as a teen is a good indicator. He did really well, beating established top level pro's long before his drug use.
Surely that has to make him odds on favourite as winner IF cycling could ever be clean?
TriDork
"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"