It’s a pretty hard thing to compare the greats of today to the greats of yesteryear - consider tennis for example. Some people like to mention how todays athletes train harder, and prepare far more specifically than yesteryear’s athletes - but I respond to that with the assertion that the champions of the past would surely have trained just as hard and prepared just as ficused as today’s champions if those opportunities had presented themselves at the time.
Indeed, professional road racing is an evolving sport - it’s somewhat lost it’s way actually in the last 5 years in my opinion. Rightly or wrongly, Le Tour has now become TOO huge at the expense of the rest of the season. Traditionally, the Superbowl of the sport was the World Championship Road Race - a one day 270klm race in which the winner was granted the prestige of wearing the World Champion’s Jersey for the entire next year - in every race he contested. Indeed, the only time he wouldn’t wear the Rainbow Jersey was if he was wearing a leader’s jersey in any of the Grand Tours.
Sadly, Lance Armstrong didn’t contest this year’s World Championship. Nor did many of the sport’s other top 10 riders. This is a bad thing. It means that the Superbowl (as it were) of the season is now moving to the middle of the season instead of to the traditional season ending moment.
As a result, we might not ever see another cyclist win the fabled “Triple Crown” ever again. The “Triple Crown” is l’Giro d’Italia, Le Tour de France, and The World Championship. The last rider to win that one was a totally wonderful guy by the name of Stephen Roche - an extraordinary Irishman posessed of every strength and craftiness imaginable.
Unfortunately, the single minded focus which Lance Armstrong has employed regarding Le Tour has, in many respects, devalued the sport as a whole if truth be known. I’ve had these conversations before, and naturally enough some of my American friends here on the board who are only recent fans of cycling due to Lance’s efforts aren’t really thrilled to learn this - but in my opinion, the true test of magnificence in a Road Cyclist is his or her performance over an entire season. This includes the epic one-day spring classics, through the Grand Tours, on through the Autumn Classics and ending with the World Championship.
In that context, Lance Armstrong has quite a long way to go if truth be known to come close to rivalling a Bernard Hinault or an Eddy Mercx. And even Miguel Indurain won l’Giro in his final winning Le Tour year - which exemplified his overall season competence.
But Lance Armstrong these days focuses on Le Tour to the exclusion of absolutely everything else. It’s a bit like Joe Montana sitting out the entire season only to come out and be the winning Superbowl quarterback - sure, history will show his name alongside the winner’s lists - but true historians will also note there was a certain “something” lacking in the wins. And of course, in doing so, he’s also influencing the other stars in the sport to follow the same trends. Naturally, the Frenchies love this - anything which makes Le Tour de France even bigger than it already is is gonna get lapped up by those guys - but it’s actually ruining the sport overall believe it or not.
Now, all that being said, in the interests of fairness it has to be said that Lance Armstrong has definitely, inarguably perfected the art of “peaking” in July, and during that month he’s a totally wicked motherfucker. But oddly enough, this year I rather felt it was a bit of a hollow win in hindsight. His Team Time Trial winning performance on Stage 4 effectively put Lance Armstrong into a 1’30" lead 7 whole days before a pedal was turned in anger over a slope of any sort, and in doing so, Lance only had to ride a “protective race leading” strategy instead of actually having to attack and attack and attack until he took the lead.
I know I’m sounding kinda petty and jealous here - and I’m sorry for that. Lance is a top guy and a gentleman - and in his position I would have done the same thing, no doubts. Still, there’s such a thing as winning with “panache” and I remain unconvinced that Lance Armstrong will be remembered as fondly as Indurain or my personal fave, Hinault.
In closing, I admire his discretion I have to say. He actually mentions his cancer ordeal (in the context of being a truly great champion) far, far less often than the people around him do. He’s gracious enough to know that it gave him an unexpected boost to his innate power to weight ratio - he used to be a much chunkier, heavier guy who really struggled in the Grand Tours - and as such, he’s actually very quiet about it and thoroughly modest it seems to me, so kudos to him for that.