fair. but mercxx has plenty of PED positive tests…
this rider, has never been associated with doping, never failed a test, never AFAIK been in the same breath of any PEDs.
does that change anything for you, why, why not?
^with the above said, i still think lance is the winner of all those tours, everyone else that would have made the podium were essentially dopers (either caught, and suspended at some point), or like lance, never tested positive, but we all know.
ie: anyone that rode with lance during USPS. i mean, it’s pretty much accepted that if you were on that team, you doped… right?
No. That is way short of Merckx. The GT legacy is all about The Tour. There’s no amount of Giro/Vuelta that makes up for 2 wins vs. 5.
Back in the day there was a website called cycling4all that assigned points for races based on their status at the time. IIRC, Merckx had something like twice as many points as all the other greats with the exception of Hinault.
So objectively Merckx was far and away best, Hinault was a clear second, and then you got to the rest. I think Sean Kelly was third but guys like Indurain, Armstrong, Museeuw were all right around there.
I am confused. Who are we talking about? With two tours i thought you were referring to Fignon, but he never won that many Vueltas. With 4 Vuelta’s in a row, I thought this may be Roglic, but he never won the Tour. Froome won more tours but not that many Giros. Nibali not so many Vuelta’s and one Tour.
Roberto Heras is listed as the only four time winner of the Vuelta, but they weren’t consecutive.
I don’t think he won any other Grand Tours.
So I’m curious too.
I am confused. Who are we talking about? With two tours i thought you were referring to Fignon, but he never won that many Vueltas. With 4 Vuelta’s in a row, I thought this may be Roglic, but he never won the Tour. Froome won more tours but not that many Giros. Nibali not so many Vuelta’s and one Tour.
So I am confused!!!
this is all hypothetical.
BUT the rider is carlos sastre. take away people that were confirmed dopers who either got a slap on the wrist, or no punishment, and his resume would have looked like this. makes you wonder, if one of the greatest cyclist ever, just never was, because he chose not to dope.
As you say it gets to hypotheticals and then you can go down a million rabbit holes. What if he was born 15 years later, or 20 years earlier. Etc etc.
But this underscores why it is important to keep pushing for level playing fields, and keeping samples for future testing is vital for integrity of sport.
I am confused. Who are we talking about? With two tours i thought you were referring to Fignon, but he never won that many Vueltas. With 4 Vuelta’s in a row, I thought this may be Roglic, but he never won the Tour. Froome won more tours but not that many Giros. Nibali not so many Vuelta’s and one Tour.
funny because a “weak” rider like Sastre having success is what brought Lance back and what brought the whole thing down.
Well that and a spat with Floyd, but largely yes…first Floyd wins with the miracle patch and whiskey drinking then Sastre and then suddenly Lance is on Vino’s team (it was kind of funny when George Hincapie gave Lance a hard time about joining Astana) !!!