There is no way to know for sure. Indurain managed to win 5. Lance won many against Ulrich as his main rival who finished 2nd to Mr 60%. So who knows. I certainly wouldn't say I highly doubt it.

You're right for sure. But, as of 1996, LA was showing no indications of being anywhere near the level of Big Mig. Far from it, in fact. And he was 3 years into using EPO at that point. It wasn't until after cancer that he increased his cadence and found his potential.

Watch this starting at 3:00.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGPGm38wt5g

Indurain was definitely clean.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Lance's palmares for the first five years of his career, 1991-1995, blow Miguel Indurain's results from the first five years of his career out of the water.

Bullshort

At 18 Indurain was the youngest winner of the national amateur road championship. He won his first professional race, a time trial in the Tour de l'Avenir. He came in 2nd in the prologue of his first Grand tour and then took the leaders Jersey of the Vuelta, the youngest rider ever to wear it. He won a stage Tour and wore the KOM jersey. By 1990 he was 10th at the Tour but would have been top 7 if he had not waited for Delgado.

Lance was unable to finish a Grand Tour before he worked with Ferrari.

No... that was reindeer milk! :-)

Additionally, off the top of my head I know Alberto Cova blood has confessed to it. Many others certainly were..

Well said Julian! Lately top four on Armstrong's apologists' list:

1. "Everyone was doing it so it was OK for Lance to dope as well."
2. "He has done so many good things for cancer patients, we should let him race again as a result."
3. "Who are you to judge him? Have you never done anything wrong in your life?"
4. "NFL, MLB etc are all doing it so why not the pro cyslists?"

I think I will give a pass to cyclists who are clean and pretend that cycling was almost all clean except for a few "bad apples" because they are in strict orders from their Team Directors or have their own foresight about how sponsorship world works, so they won't lose sponsors/fans. But it is hypocrisy to the nth degree when they really know what was going on, they were a part of the problem and now look us in the eye and deny what happened

Now you're just being willfully ignorant. In his first five years as a professional Indurain finished two Tours, in 97th place and and 47th place. He withdrew from his first three Tours. He won almost zero races during his first five years as professional.

Lance Armstrong was also the winner of that national amateur road championship. In his first five years as a professional he won over 20 road races, including the US national championship road race, the world championship road race, two stages of the Tour, a stage of Paris-Nice, several other European one-day races, a first and a second at the Clasica San Sebastien, first at Fleche Wallone second at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and second overall at Paris Nice.

Lance also finished the 1995 Tour, his third, in 36th place.

I don't have a dog in this fight, I really don't, but it doesn't help your case when your "facts" have no basis in reality. Lance was a much more accomplished rider in his first five years as a professional than Indurain was in his first five years. To suggest that Lance just came out of nowhere in 1999 is absurd.

Are you really trying to compare the Tour du Pont to the Vuelta? The Thrift drug classic? Really? Do you know how important a race the Tour de l'Avenir was? Let me guess, you have never heard of it. While lance was racing industrial park crits Indurian was wearing the leaders jersey in Grand Tours. While Lance was dropping out of Grand Tours Indurain was finishing them, winning stages, wearing jerseys, and starting multiple Grand Tours each year

KNY's point was clear, Indurian showed far more promise as a Grand Tour rider then Lance did. That is clearly a true statement. Winning Kmart West Classic does not change that fact.

Lance was certainly a talented young rider but there was zero indication he would ever win the Tour

Indurain won a time trial in the Tour de l'Avenir, which is a race for young professionals and amateurs. He led the Vuelta because he finished second in the prologue and the person who finished first lost time on the next stage and Indurain finished in the bunch. He finished the race 84th overall. Lance Armstrong won a road stage in the Tour de France his third year as a pro. He also won the US National Road championship and the world road championship that same year. He won several road races in Europe his first two years as a pro. Armstrong's palmares for the first five years of his career are easy to find. You've done nothing to refute them or to show that Indurain was more accomplished during the first five years of his career. The fact that you choose the Tour DuPont and the Thrift Drug classic to pull out of all the races that Armstrong won says as much about you as I need to know. The fact that you say he was racing "industrial park crits" when he was, in fact, racing and winning road stages of the Tour, the US national road championship, the UCI world road championship, the Clasica de San Sebastien, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Paris-Nice, and La Fleche Wallone shows how truthful you are being. If this is your level of intellectual honesty, then I know how seriously we should take your other claims in this thread.

Intellectual dishonesty? You mean like listing one day races as an indicator of success in Grand Tours? What's next, are you going to say Romans Vainsteins showed promise as a GT rider?

Indurain, at the age of 20 in his first year as a professional finished 2nd in the Prologue of a Grand Tour. He didn't get lucky by getting in a break or attacking while the favorites were looking at each other he crushed a TT. That is a sign of a huge engine. Grand Tours are won in the mountains and in TT's. While Indurain was winning/podium major TT's Armstrong was off the back. While Indurian was wearing the KOM jersey early on Armstrong was dropping out early on

The facts remain. Armstrong showed no promise in Grand Tours early on. He dropped out of every Tour he rode until he started working with Ferrari. Indurain however showed huge promise as a grand Tour rider and was consistently touted as the next big Spanish stage race talent from the age of 18.

Now you're changing what my original statement was. I didn't say that Armstrong's early palmares indicated success in Grand Tours. I said, "Lance's palmares for the first five years of his career, 1991-1995, blow Miguel Indurain's results from the first five years of his career out of the water."

Indurain was not "winning/podiuming major TTs." He finished second in one prologue time trial, and won some stages at a race for young riders. You can cherry pick Indurain's early results all you want (though there aren't many to choose from), but you're not fooling anyone but yourself.

And, FYI, Lance finished the 1995 Tour de France, and he didn't even meet Ferrari until the end of that year. So, you can stop saying that he didn't finish a grand tour until he starting working with Ferrari, too.

There's enough dirt on Lance that it's pretty easy to attack him honestly. Your desperation is showing, and I'm anything but a Lance apologist.

Every tour until Ferrari? He was 36th in his 3rd tour. Indurain dnf'd his first 3 tours then finished 97th. He only finished 2 of his first 6 tries at the vuelta. So you are basing his promise on a single 10min TT prologue? Not much to hang your hat on.

Come on. Everyone knows that winning the prologue and leading the first couple of stages of a grand tour is the best predictor of grand tour ability. That's why Fabian Cancellara has won so many grand tours. It's just a good thing that Indurain never used the services of an Italian doping doctor* before he started having his grand tour success, or this whole argument would be really silly.

* Just make sure you don't Google "Indurain and Conconi," if you want to hold onto this fallacy.

The Tour is not the only Grand Tour Indurain finished the Vuleta at 21. That Prologue result is hardly Indurain's only early result. He was a TT machine

Indurain did not only finish 2nd prologue the Vuelta in his 1st year but also podiumed TT's at Tour of Burgos ,Ruta del Sol,Midi-Pyrénées Tour of the EEC Tour (Also won the points classification) Tour of Murcia de l'Oise 2nd Spanish Championship, Midi-Libre Tour of the Basque Country, GP Navarre,Tour of Galicia in his first 2 years.

What climbing/TT success did Lance have at 20 year old? What Grand Tour's did he finish at 21?

If you were to look at both riders at the end of their 2nd season it is clear who showed the most potential as a Grand Tour rider

No way Indurain would have been passed like this at 21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmR9k8UAohs

This... Cycling is as dirty as ever. Contador is as dirty as Lance and is still allowed to ride. They are all doping scum bags.

"Julian" has convinced himself that Lance barely had the talent to make it above Cat 1. This, of course, presents a bit of a problem: How did such an athletic chump beat the elite of the elite, all of whom were doping. The answer apparently is super dope. Lance must have doped more than everyone else or was on some secret drugs no one else had access to or some other hand waving about Lance being ahead of everyone else.

Thus we get the cockamamie theory that Armstrong invented blood transfusions in cycling. Apparently since LA was using transfusions in 2000 and little information exists about what other riders were doing that year, LA must have been the only one. This, of course, ignores that transfusions were used before 2000; there was no reason to switch to transfusions in 2000 because EPO was undetectable; and the next year (2001), when EPO testing by the UCI began, even sprinters were using transfusions.

He still refuses to deal with the question why would it matter if Armstrong did use transfusions a year earlier than some other riders, who were using EPO instead. Riders switched from transfusions to EPO in the first place because EPO is far easier to use. It is safer. It does not have the same problems with storage and transport, A rider does not suffer days of sub par training after a blood withdrawal. It could be used year round. It is not at all clear that Lance had an advantage by using transfusions in 2000. Given the advantages of EPO, he may have been at a disadvantage.

Allegations of other drugs that were not available to other riders also proved to be fanciful. The USADA affidavits are clear. Postal used the same drugs that everyone else was using. Not only that, the team was quite conservative compared to other teams. Key riders like Landis did not even get anything until he was scheduled to ride the Tour. This was not an operation that doped everyone to the gills with three dozen drugs like what was used at Spanish teams like Kelme, Liberty Seguros and, presumably, Euskatel.

The simplest answer is usually the correct one. Instead of being a hopeless rider who used super dope to beat the elite, it is far simpler to accept that LA was super talented and doped, just like everyone else. He was also very very lucky. Seven Tours with no punctures and no crashes; what are the chances of that? As Landis said, Lance was a badass bike racer. He beat the dopers at their own game.

Yup. Pointing to LA's first Tours as an indication of potential is just stupid. While Indurain's job was to support his teammate's GC chances, Armstrong was not even trying to do that. He was never trying for GC. He was only trying for stage wins.

What also needs to be considered is that back then it was believed that putting a young rider through a grand tour would be detrimental to long term development. When Lance rode his first Tour, it was planned that he would be pulled part way through. His goal was to gain experience and try to win a stage, which he did. Not many young riders win a stage at their first Tour. Second Tour he did not finish. Third Tour he won a stage. Fourth Tour was a few months before finding out that his abdomen and lungs were riddled with cancer that had also spread to his brain. Really, that Tour is being used as a sign of GT potential?

Not sure why you lie, I have said several times that Lance was a very talented rider. He would have likely won multiple one day classics. He did not show the abilities critical to success at a Grand Tour (climbing, TT, recovery) until he started working with Ferrari


Armstrong did transfusions several years earlier then his key rivals. His key rivals were not using EPO in 2000 due to the new EPO test, the same reason Ferrari started them on transfusions


Postal did, Lance didn't. Even on Postal not everyone was on the same program. Dave Z never did transfusions. Christian VdV never did transfusions. He was left off the Tour team because of it. In Hamilton's book he talks about how he always suspected Lance had something different from the rest of the team that enabled him to see a sudden jump in power right before the Tour. Perhaps it was Hemmassit? Lance bragged to Marty Jemison that he found Baxter Pharmaceuticals all by himself and gained access to their experimental drugs. Landis has talked about Lance having access to experimental insulin drugs

Instead of twisting and lying how about telling us why the 83 samples tested after the Prologue in 1999 there were only 9 positives for EPO and 5 belonged to Armstrong? How is this possible if "Everyone was doing it"? Funny how you ignore that fact over and over and instead twist what others write

This guy has been posting his bile for fifteen years on forums and for years on Twitter. The language, arguments and style are exactly the same as the well known Lance hater, Race Radio. It is RR's whole life. Julian Dean, the NZ cyclist, announced his first time registering for Twitter last year. Curiouser and curiouser. Is this a sly way to argue from phony authority.

Look at the budget of the USPS team...seems logical they could afford a unique program, don't you think? Seems logical to me.

How effective was Floyd Landis in his doping program when he had to do it without the budget size Lance had?

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Adrian in Vancouver

Thanks for the heads up.

The playing field was certainly not level when it came to budget. Lance paid over 1,000,000 to Ferrari in bank transfers alone. Mike Anderson, Armstrong's assistant, also described how Armstrong would also pay large amounts in cash



How is it a level playing field if the entry fee for Lance's doping program starts at 1,000,000? How does a Neo Pro afford that?

Makes the "level playing field" argument laughable. Yet Lance keeps referring to it and gullible people lap it up.

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Adrian in Vancouver