What's with these former winners? Lance has done something never done before; why not show some class. Sorry Bernie, Lance is better than you are and better than you were. It's not necessary for you or Greg to acknowledge him, because as of now, he is The Man.

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Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

if you actually read the full eurosport article you will see that many of hinault's comments were taken out of context. keep the gun in closet.

http://eurosport.com/...6083_Sto607341.shtml

and Lance has won more Tour than Hinault ok...but look at the whole palmares, and he is not there yet!

Merckx
Hinault
Armstrong
Anquetil
Indurain

"But even if Armstrong wins a sixth, Hinault says he has no right to call himself the best ever."

Can you put that in any context that doesn't shed bad light on Hinault?

Some my argue that the Mike Ditka-Buddy Ryan Bears ('84?) weren't the best ever, but those on that team have certainly earned the right to claim they were. Hinault may have some elaborate formula to determine who was the best ever, but 6 titles kinda clinches it.

I hate the Celtics, but you can't argue that the old Celtics were the best and most dominant team ever. Why, because they always won.

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Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

I think Hinault and many other European cycling centric people look at the Tour as a very important race but they also consider many of the Giro, Veulta, etc. to be equally important. Lance races the Tour, everything else for him is just a tune-up. Hinault and Merckx won a lot of other crits and as a result think of cycling greatness in a much broader context. They did not have the luxury of simply saving themselves for the tour. They raced everything hard. This is why you hear Lance talking about focusing on some other races. He wants to be considered the greatest rider ever, but to do so he needs to hold more than the TDF record. As Francois points out, Lance cannot claim that title until he wins these other races.

Some guys just can't win!

If Lance wins too many stages, he's the new Cannibal. So he rides The Giro and the Dauphine in support of team mates instead of winning them, and he's a loser?

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Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

And when he does win these other races they will bring up some combination of races which he didn't.

And what are you doing up this early on a weekend? Man is it going to be hot in the south bay today :\

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"your horse is too high" - tigerchik

Has Lance ever said that he wants to be remembered as the greatest rider ever? If so, I've never heard it (and I pay pretty close attention). I've heard him say that he wants to be remembered as a cancer survivor and a father, that in 20 years when someone mentions the TdF his kids will ask "What's that?"

Lance has never claimed to be the greatest cyclist ever, and although I'm a big Lance fan, you can't ignore the other two grand tours just because they're not as famous as the TDF. Most if not all the other 5 time winners also won a couple times in the Giro or the Vuelta or both. Some of them wontwo grand tours in the same year. Nobody is making up some moving target for him to shoot for, these are important races. That said, I like it better when past champions show some class and support the current generation of champion. I hope that Hinault's comments were indeed taken somewhat out of context.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Even Lance agrees that Merckx is the greatest rider ever. Why do you want it to be otherwise?

Say you give 5 points for the Tour de France, 3 for the Giro and the Vuelta, and 1 per classic and semi-classic wins wins and 3 points for a world title

Mercks: 25+15+3+38+9 = 90 points
5 TdF with 35 stage wins and 96 days in yellow and in 1969, wins the yellow jersey, the green jersey and the polka dot.
5 Giro d'Italia with 25 stage wins
1 Vuelta
7 Milan-San Remo
3 World championships
2 Tour of Flanders
3 Paris-Roubaix
5 Liege-Bastogne-Liege
2 Amstel-Gold race
2 Tour of Lombardy
etc...

Lance Armstrong
6 Tour de France 23 stage wins (including the TTT) and about 60days in yellow
1 world championship
1 Dauphine Libere

Don't even need to add up...but that gives 33 points.

can do the same with Hinault if you insist...even if you remove one Tour, he is miles ahead...

Now, if you argue that the opposition wasn't the same...major contenders against Merckx:

Ocana, Van Impe, Thevenet, Zootmelk, Kuiper, Martens, Raas (last two for classics)

Lance contenders: Jan and this Tour Basso.


You may argue that hinault is behind, based on your opinion about the french, but Lance will not be ahead of Merckx. Merckx is like Michael Jordan in cycling, just the greatest ever.

if you can't figure this out, I suggest you spend a full year in Europe where cycling is not ONLY the Tour de France. OK, it's the biggest stage race, but it is far from being the only important race.

Those numbers for Merckx speak for themselves. Amazing.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Francois, with all love in my heart for you, my only comment is that since Hinault is in the group of riders with five wins, and someone else, whoever, it is, is in the process of surpassing the number of wins of that special clique, that to make negative comments during the event seems a bit classless and like sour grapes. When a home run title is about to be beaten over here in American Baseball, usually surviving family members (or the player if still alive) will come and sit in the stands to cheer him on. They leave the comments like, the balls are harder, the bats are better, his home field was a shorter stadium and he was shot up on steriods to be made by others, and history. We are talking about a "class" thing.

don't forget the Hour. I think to do that is borderline insane.

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As a human, I appreciate Hinault NOT. But, I was just answering some comments about Lance being the greatest ever...which he is NOT. It's not sour grapes, at all. It's an amazing feat that he wins 6 in a row, but to have guys here who seem to not know more about cycling than the Tdf say "he is the greatest ever" is crap...he is the best TdF rider ever, not the best bike rider ever.

I think when Lance says -- next year I want to focus on the Giro, it is pretty much implied that he wants to round out his resume thought I never have heard the words "I want to be remembered as the world's greatest cyclist" ever come out of his mouth.

Thanks Francois. I think it probably is easier to focus on one race all year. Other cyclists probably don't have the financial luxury, or their team structures don't allow it.

But here is this great expert, Hinault, saying Lance doesn't look good this year, before it even got to the point where he would ordinarily begin to make his move. How foolish Hinault looks. By sour grapes, I meant on Hinault's part. Emotionally, he lost something today, so he has to diminish the accomplishment of the one who took it from him.

I think the comments of Hinault were made early june, not when the tour started. they were made when many (me included) were thinking that Lance may not be as good after the TT up the Ventoux.

After that, in the first TTT, Hinault started saying, that Armstrong would take #6. In the first mountain stage, he said "Le Tour est plie" (Tour is bent, literally, which means, it's done)

Francois--I HATE it hen somebody has the facts! Damn it. Thanks for your explanation. I will shake Hinault's hand when they do the ceremony. P.S. Did anybody notice that OLN did not show Lance crossing the line at the finish? The cameras were not on him.

it doesn't mean that I think Hinault is not an arrogant prick :-) he was when he was riding, and he probably still is. he was far from having a lot of friends in the peloton (and probably didn't care anyway)...and he is probably pissed not to be co-leader anymore.

Did anyone notice that Sherwin and Liggett said that the greatest ever remains Eddy Merckx :-)

they also said that Lance may be at the Tour 05...I thought part of the discovery contract was that Lance rides it???

I read that he is not obligated to ride the Tour in 05 according to a quote of Bruyneel. Of course I do not necessarily believe the media as things get so twisted and blown out of proportion by the writers and editors depending on how they want to spin it. Guess living with a PR queen has my view of the media tainted.

I heard Lance in an interview say that he hadn't decided on next year, but that if Discovery told him they wanted him to ride the TDF he would certainly understand that.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

"Guess living with a PR queen has my view of the media tainted"

LOL! Did J see that?

I would think that from a marketing ROI perspective, they would absolutely want him to ride in the Tour. More bang for the buck vs. the Giro and Vuelta.

see what?