Not many at the TdF were clean, of that we can be sure.


Had there been no doping, lance most certainly would not have won much, if anything, at those elite levels.


.

---

Advanced Aero TopTube Storage for Road, Gravel, & Tri...ZeroSlip & Direct-mount, made in the USA.
DarkSpeedWorks.com.....Reviews.....Insta.....Facebook
--

This.

I get that Lemond hasn't gone after other dopers in the same way that he's gone after Armstrong. I get that he's even fine with being associated with and working along side other dopes.

But does anyone blame him? He made an offhand comment in response to a question about Armstrong's associaion with Ferrari. If I remember correctly, he was asked about it shortly after the relationship between Armstrong and Ferrari broke. Lemond commented that he was disappointed that Armstrong was working with someone with that reputation, and then went on to question Armstrong's integrity, saying it was either the greatest comeback or the greatest fraud. He said something that anyone else in the sport who was honest would have said. And it was something that would have easily been forgotten by now. But Armstrong used his connections to bury Lemond for having made that comment.

So, sure, it's personal. But it's also very understandable.

It might have been a dumb business decision.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't a sincere comment. He was asked about the relationship between Lance and Ferrari. Anyone honest would have said the same.

It wasn't that big of a deal. Lemond wasn't the only one questioning the relationship. ANd there's no evidence answered the way he did because he had an axe to grind at the time. Of course, he has an axe to grind now. Given Lance's reaction and the fall out over his response, wouldn't anyone?

It was not an off-hand comment. LeMond knew exactly what he was doing.

Here is a recent and somewhat similar example. After Landis dropped the bomb on cycling, Bradley Wiggins was interviewed about it. He said Landis could not be trusted. He said that he heard Landis had a drinking problem. He said he was unhinged. He did his best to discredit Landis. Now if that was a random person who did not know any better then that would be one thing. But during the previous year Wiggins was on a team that was chock full of ex-Postal dopers. They told him about the doping on Postal. The team manager told Wiggins about the doping. Wiggins knew that Armstrong was doping. He knew Landis was telling the truth. Yet he tried to heap doubt on what Landis said and Landis himself. Why? That is a very good question.

LeMond was in the same position. He was not a naive recreational cyclist who fell off the turnip truck in 1999 then bought a Trek Madone. If you hear LeMond tell it (depending on which version he is relating that week), his career was ended by EPO users. Anyone who was involved in cycling at that time and tells you he did not know Armstrong was doping is a liar, stupid, or both. LeMond knew Armstrong was doping, just like the other riders Armstrong was competing with and just like the riders LeMond competed against. LeMond is also very knowledgeable about cycling's history. He knew the sport was a cesspool of doping. It was during his time racing, and it was in the decades before. Yet he decided to go after Armstrong.

But....LeMond was right, and that counts for a lot. Of course he knew because he has publicly stated that one of the bike mechanics that was on the tour used to work for LeMond and he had told him that Lance was doping. Whenever I hear people criticize LeMond on his handling of this situation I wonder if they really internalize the position that LeMond was in. While famous, he was never as famous as LA, and still isn't. If I ask 10 people on the street who was the only American to win the Tour de France 8 would have no idea and the other two wouldn't know what the Tour de France was. This was true even in 2000, for LA to go after him so heavily was unnecessary (and part of his undoing), he could have done nothing and been none the worse.

I think it is not a valid argument to equate LeMond's tolerance of say Hinault doping with LA's doping. The two are not in the same class. And, of course, LeMond will have an experience bias since he knew/rode with/was friends with Hinault. If you just don't like LeMond that is fine, but lets not try to equate anything he did with LA; it isn't even close. LA is a dirtbag, not because of doping (although that isn't great) but because he is one giant douche. He is most certainly not the only douche in sports. Go to Yankee stadium, the field is full of them. He was just a certain type of massive douche who couldn't leave people well enough alone.

Lemond was asked a question about the relationship between Armstrong and Ferrari, which was something that had just broke in the news.

He responded in a reasonable and measured manner. There's no evidence that, prior to this, he had an axe to grind with Armstrong. I don't believe for a minume that Lemond was naive about doping in the peloton. He probably stongly suspected Armstrong and others prior to the Ferrari/Armstrong revelation. Whether it bothered him or not, it wasn't such an issue that he felt the need to speak out. He only spoke when asked the question.

Armstrong took it from there and actively sought to destroy Lemond's business interests in revenge for comments that otherwise would have been completely forgotten.

Is it all about doping? Of course not. Is Lemond's animosity to Armstrong as opposed to others justified? Of course.

This is true up to the point where you consider that LA reached a level of brand recognition and income where he became bigger than the team ~ where the other riders and staff were essentially working for him and not the sponsors. He certainly may have started out in the usual pickle where he had to dope to compete as a novice pro, but by the time he first retired the power differential you're referring to had been flipped and he was as much the corporate honch as he was simply a rider anymore. Just try to imagine him getting 'fired' from the team like any number of other riders on other teams have been for one transgression or another over the years.

The tricky part is where (when) along that continuum where you could say Bruyneel, the docs, and all the other facilitators came to end up working for LA instead of the other way around like a normal rider-team/employee-employer relationship, and then we could speculate how he might have pulled the ripcord then. Obviously that would have taken an even bigger set of balls than he, uh, um...

FIFY.

Lots of conjecture there couched in the form of facts

The problem I have with Lemond is how he has told the story of why he had to retire in a couple of different ways that suited him at the time. First it was the muscle disease and no matter how hard he trained he couldn't recover and compete, etc. Now it's that he was in super shape but got dropped because the other riders started taking EPO. You can't have it both ways.

I have a similar problem with how he called out Armstrong as either the biggest miracle or biggest fraud. Turns out he was right, but at the time I remember how badly he was doing in the 1989 Giro until he got an iron shot and then went on to place 2nd in the final TT and then win the 1989 Tour. Hey, it was probably a true story, but at the time there was no real evidence against Armstrong yet and his story is no less unlikely than Armstrongs was on the surface. It just seemed like a really ballsy thing to say considering the iron shot story.

But it turns out that Greg was right. Whether luck or if he really knew or saw something that others didn't, who knows.

I do find it odd though that he watched Indurain take his crown away and win 5 Tours in a row and he watched Bugno and Ciapucci do amazing things and never said a word about them. Even though in retrospect it seems obvious that Indurain was the beginning of the EPO fueled Tour winning parade. Why total silence about the guy who effectively ended his career? Obviously there is a huge personality difference between Indurain and Armstrong and as an American, Lemond was asked about Armstrong. But still. Crickets about the guy who ended his viability as a Tour de France contender by taking EPO?

---

Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

Because as was stated before, after Lemonds comment,Armstrong publicly, though behind the scenes at the time, said he was going to destroy Lemond. After that and him going after lemond it was personal. I do not remember Indurain every going after Lemond

Edit: Still fascinating to me that everytime there is a thread about Armstrong there is Lemond bashing.

Well you know other than, according Lemond, forcing him to retire because there was no way for Lemond to compete without also taking EPO. Unless winning the TDF was not that important to Lemond or something.

Quite a bit different than a.personal.vandetta, complete with offering money to people to claim.Lemond.doped.

I stayed at Hincapie's hotel in South Carolina. It's really cool.

You have anything to show that Lemond said in 91 that Indurain forced him to retire because it was widely known that Indurain was on EPO....at the time? I am aware of what Lemond said about the pelaton being on drugs and he could not keep up, Quite different than a guy telling others that He was going to destroy a guy and his wife regardless of what it takes.
I am not here to defend Lemond. You guys go ahead and character assassinate him while playing down anything Armstrong did. Fine by me

Tommy D. is awesome.

Chris Horner's nickname is "redneck". Another really cool guy. Won a Grand Tour but can't ride in Tour de Cali. I am SO bummed.

Got Big Mig's autograph at Interbike. Sweeeet.

Here is a thought...
He nearly died, so why NOT risk everything to achieve his goals....

Continuing to poisoning of the body because someone gets sick is human. Look at smokers, heavy drinkers, or overweight people, who continue despite medical evidence and Dr recommendations to stop.

No one has gotten out of this game alive yet btw.

---

2017 Cervelo P2
2017 Cervelo S2
itraininla.com
#itraininla

What makes holding what Lemond did up to scrutiny "Lemond bashing".

Did he claim that an iron shot brought him around in the 1989 Giro? If a rider told a story like that today would you believe it? (Note that I actually don't have any reason to disbelieve the story, it just sounds bad.)

Did he claim when he retired that he couldn't keep up because of the effects of the lead shot and the muscle disease?

Did he later claim that he couldn't keep up because everybody was on EPO?

Has he been silent on whether or not Indurain took EPO?

There is no doubt that whether Indurain was an EPO fueled machine or not, that he was a better person, with more personal character than Armstrong. No doubt. But on the other hand Lemond never said anything critical about Indurain that I'm aware of and therefore Indurain never had a reason to go after Lemond. Not that I think he would have mind you, but none the less, Lemond was silent when it came to Indurain even though Indurain was linked to Ferarri's mentor Conconi. Sure, the fact that Lemond was an American who won the Tour and Armstrong was an American who won the Tour prompted every US media person to want to ask Greg what he though about it. I'm sure that hardly anybody asked him about Indurain.

I was a huge fan of Lemond as a rider. Now, not as much.

BTW, I watched the ESPN 30/30 thing about Slaying the Badger. The only person who to my mind came off well was Hampsten. It seemed like everybody else was intent on spinning int their way.

All that said, I still think that the '86 and '89 Tour's were the best that I ever watched.

---

Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

No problem with holding Lemond up to scrutiny. No issues on his own thread proving his inconsistencies. What i said was.... It fascinates me that on ARMSTRONG threads it always goes to Lemond.

Some fact clarifications, as you imply it was luck lemond knew lance was doping during his 2001 statement.

Lemond knew la was doping in 2000, but didn't make his greatest comeback statement until 2001, when lance was linked to Ferrari in the press and a mic was put under Lemond's mouth. Lance and lemond were actually quite friendly with each other in the 1990s. It wasn't until armstrong went ape on lemond after this statement, and lemond was forced to retract his statement from the lance pr machine pressure. There's a lot of reasons, rational reasons, why lemond thinks la is an ass, due to la going full nuclear on lemond with the goal of completely crushing him and his business interests.

Bottom line, you might not like lemond, which is fine, but the war was truly started by armstrongs actions (with Ferrari) and fueled by his pr machine, to maximize money for armstrong and trek, and it didn't matter to them if lemond quickly became a casualty.

In 2001 the Trek deal proved painful for LeMond as he was forced by John Burke, the head of Trek, to apologize for the negative comments about Michele Ferrari, doping, and Lance Armstrong, who was by then a very important marketing force for Trek. LeMond's contract with Trek had a clause prohibiting LeMond from doing anything that would damage Trek. Burke reminded LeMond of this commitment, and strongly argued that LeMond publicly retract his statements. LeMond read a formal apology to Armstrong.[7]

http://velonews.competitor.com/...w-greg-lemond_347148

VN: It may have been awkward for you to come to Interbike for a while, but in the aftermath of USADA and Armstrong’s admissions, you’ve emerged vindicated.
GL: Well… I’ve always thought of vindicated as meaning I’d been vindictive, and it was never about being vindictive. I mean, with the stuff that I knew, I remained so reserved, but I don’t know how I held it back, maybe I thought it was suicide.

VN: Well, there are things that you hear, versus things that you ‘know’…
GL: No, no. I knew. I’ve known since probably around 2000. [Former U.S. Postal Service team mechanic] Julien Devries,, he told me everything — about the bribery, about everything. It was a no-win situation… Regrets, whatever, why did I waste that energy? It was very stressful, but I wouldn’t have changed anything about what I did. I couldn’t have changed anything about what I did.

VN: There were a lot of people who said ‘Greg LeMond is jealous, he’s bitter, it’s sour grapes, he’s been over shadowed’…
GL: You realize that when Trek, and their PR firm, when they linked up with Armstrong, that it was their strategy. If there was any negative news about them online, it would bounce right off of Google. If it was something negative or controversial, it would bounce right off the internet. I don’t mean to get too much into that, but it’s just that I gave four of five interviews between 2001 and 2008, out of hundreds of requests. The point is, that they used a political strategy to repeat that Greg is a sore loser and they were successful in implanting that impression. I knew there was no place for me, because of the influence he [Armstrong] had, he had the ability to take control and persuade the governing body and the major races, and I was upsetting the party. The irony is… Armstrong made it a bigger deal than it was. It could have just been, well, we had a disagreement. I never called him a fraud. He said that I called him a fraud, which I didn’t.

But to be honest, it was a difficult period because a large part of my life had been taken away. What’s interesting is when I went back to Eurosport, and was looking at getting back into the bike business, I saw that not anyone in Europe had a clue what sort of negative image that America had, or the bike industry had. Like I said, it was propaganda, it’s a classic tactic. You can destroy people with misinformation. That’s what Armstrong tried to do, and that’s what Trek tried to do. And it worked.

But what’s great is that it didn’t work in 90 percent of the world. I have more friends in Europe, I realized, from a business perspective, that’s my big opportunity. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but when I was at the Alpe d’Huez stage at the Tour last year, and people were cheering, ‘LeMond, LeMond, LeMond, LeMond for President!’ But I think that everything connected well in Europe, especially with the people who love cycling. Over there, they didn’t get the negative publicity like we saw in the U.S. because there weren’t any politically styled counter attacks driven by the Lance engine — he had his whole team, and it was truly an engine.

VN: It was a team effort. When questioned, Armstrong often answered referring to using the editorial “we,” referring to Johan Bruyneel, Bill Stapleton, and the rest of his brain trust.
GL: Yes, and he still does. That’s what you’ll find out with this whistleblower case, and everything else that’s going on. It was really organized. He did it as a team, it was a really organized deal, and unfortunately, I believe Armstrong has a fixation on me and that he has anger toward me that’s beyond normal… if you don’t back what he says…. Well, he either likes you, or he hates you, but I don’t really think he likes anybody. If he can use you, he’ll like you, but I wasn’t willing to be that.

VN: Well, I don’t want to talk too much about Armstrong. It’s hard not to, in the context of your return to the spotlight, but that wasn’t my intent.
GL: I don’t want to either, but I’m just trying to explain how all of that impacted me, being back. It’s good to be back in cycling, and it was never really about Armstrong, but about pro racing, and the system in general, and the only good thing about Armstrong going down was that he took down the old guard of the UCI that was part of the problem. I don’t want to say… [Former UCI president Pat] McQuaid wasn’t the whole thing, but there was a pact there, maybe to protect the sport, or for economic benefit.

And the reason I took the spot at Eurosport was to be a part of the new system, with [new UCI president] Brian Cookson coming in. Looking at the data and the speeds of racing, they are within the realm of human performance. I thought a lot about doing the stuff for Eurosport. I can see how difficult it is for journalists, you get to know the riders, they are good people, they are not bad people, most of the riders… they are part of a team, and they get dragged into it. But I feel confident that the sport is going in the right direction, and work being done on new testing is great. Within three or four years, the testing will be infallible, which will make the sport completely credible.


Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/...#IrvlU8RDJGiqg5eE.99

VN: Many people who followed the Armstrong narrative closely thought ‘Oh, Greg LeMond is just bitter.’ It wasn’t that simple. But that was the spin.
GL: If people knew me… There’s not one person I’ve ever felt envious of, or jealous of, in my life. It’s just not how I live my life, and if people really knew me, they’d see that. I never finished a race where I got beat and said, ‘hey, I’m jealous,’ because I lost, or because someone made more money than me. It’s just not worth it. It’s just not how I live my life. I mean, maybe I’d be jealous if my wife liked another guy, but that’s just normal.

But this is something that’s always been awkward for me because I couldn’t express myself, no matter what I said, it would come out wrong, or it would be taken differently. Everyone said I should have a PR person, but all they’d do would be to tell me to shut up, and I didn’t want that, I wanted to ask the questions that needed to be asked. So eventually I left the sport so I didn’t have to deal with it. I had to walk away, because the only questions that were interesting, for the media, and the sport, were regarding Armstrong.


Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/...#IrvlU8RDJGiqg5eE.99

Why not? Why can't you have multiple reasons for your relative competitiveness be altered? The lead shots in his system, and realizing (much later) that nearly the entire peloton eventually started using epo. Read cycling magazines or threads about cycling on this forum or older cyclng forums, and most people would say only a handful of people are doping in the current environment (insert year of choice). Well we now know that since epo came on the scene, doping has been near universal in cycling ever since and pretty much required for any magnitude of success. Who knows, we might be saying the same thing about doping during this "clean generation," as there have been a ton of recent positive tests.... Just like there have always been for years.

This just reinforces what I have written: That it was not a shot in the dark. LeMond knew Armstrong was doping and deliberately confronted him in the press about it.

It leaves open why LeMond never went after Sean Kelly and other contemporaries who doped and affected his palmares. LeMond's version of his motivations makes no sense, and his behavior after Armstrong's downfall makes even less sense.

BTW, just in case LeMond is reading, I officially deny that I am part of the "Lance engine."

Read the full interview, it's all a pretty rational response. Greg made statement(which was after the Ferrari and lance relationship was all over the media, versus Greg making a statement when he had personal knowledge a year earlier), la and trek go ape, lemonds business crumbles from the pressure, lemond not in public eye very much, la in public eye, lemond back in public, after la downfall, and public realizes lemond was a casualty of the la machine for a full a decade. Lemond, of course, is still ticked at la the person, and la the doper, but primarily (I think)la the person. I don't think he harbors any ill will towards his other cycling colleagues dopers or not, as that is in a sense asked and his answer in the velo news interview, if you go there and read it in its entirety.

In the words of Ullrich, "Whoever still can't put one and one together about what happened in cycling is beyond my help."