OK, so here come some more numbers. This time it is number of stages Tour victors win during their victories. Quick overview – I did leave out wins in team time trials, as that seemed fairer. And I went back to 1969, just to include Merckx, as he seemed to be most likely to be the gold standard on this. And I did include Armstrong in this, as well as Contador in 2010 and Landis in 2006 as alternate winners. Also worth mentioning is that I have no sense of the history of the Tour going anywhere near that far back, so any conclusions or hypotheses I may come up with should be considered with that in mind. And, finally, I did the research on this fairly quickly, so may have made a mistake or two.
Eddy Merckx is the Tour champion who won the most stages during a Tour victory since 1969, with eight in both the 1970 and 1974 Tours. Hinault won 7 stages in 1979, and Merckx won another 6 stages in the 1969 and 1972 Tours. And, in something I was unaware of, Ocana won 6 stages in the 1973 Tour. Fignon comes in with 5 stages in the 1984 Tour, as does Hinault in 1981, and Armstrong in 2004.
The next thing worth addressing, and this is where I started with this research, is whether winning four stages and the Tour is a significant accomplishment among Tour winners. Clearly, it is significant in cycling, but is that a point at which one can separate a Tour victory from a dominant Tour victory, or, in different terms, are these winners in a separate echelon from other Tour victors?
If the dividing line is winning five stages, then we have the list above covering nearly the last fifty years of the Tour. If it is winning four stages, then Nibali gets included. I think that sort of answers the question for most, as putting Nibali into a group with Merckx, Hinault, and Fignon seems on its face unwarranted. I don’t have enough of a sense of Ocana to be able to fairly assess him as a Tour rider, but that accomplishment of six stage wins and a Tour victory suggests that he was a remarkable rider. And Armstrong is Armstrong at this point – all the opinions on him have been opined at this point, and no point in doing it again, really, but on the road, he is a fair shout (at the least) to include with Hinault, Fignon, and Ocana.
So, if we make the dividing line winning five or more stages in a Tour victory, then no current rider matches the accomplishments of the five listed above. I suspect the argument that the Tour is not the same race as it was in the era of Merckx through Hinault holds some water, and deserves consideration in why the only rider since then to make it into the group is Armstrong, but all things considered, that does not explain Indurain or Lemond, clearly dominant Tour winners, at least in some sense of the term, not being able to accomplish what the others have. And, looking at this another way, there was a gap of twenty years between Fignon winning five stages and the Tour in 1984 and Armstrong doing so in 2004. This isn’t something that happens all the time, and perhaps we are just in an interim before it happens again.
Or, another way to look at this, claims to unusual dominance by any current Tour winners are probably premature. The numbers I am bringing into this are just one slice of the total picture, but I think this is a reasonable way to assess Tour performances. I do have the year-by-year breakdown if anyone wants me to post that in here, and I suppose it is mildly interesting reading.
Eddy Merckx is the Tour champion who won the most stages during a Tour victory since 1969, with eight in both the 1970 and 1974 Tours. Hinault won 7 stages in 1979, and Merckx won another 6 stages in the 1969 and 1972 Tours. And, in something I was unaware of, Ocana won 6 stages in the 1973 Tour. Fignon comes in with 5 stages in the 1984 Tour, as does Hinault in 1981, and Armstrong in 2004.
The next thing worth addressing, and this is where I started with this research, is whether winning four stages and the Tour is a significant accomplishment among Tour winners. Clearly, it is significant in cycling, but is that a point at which one can separate a Tour victory from a dominant Tour victory, or, in different terms, are these winners in a separate echelon from other Tour victors?
If the dividing line is winning five stages, then we have the list above covering nearly the last fifty years of the Tour. If it is winning four stages, then Nibali gets included. I think that sort of answers the question for most, as putting Nibali into a group with Merckx, Hinault, and Fignon seems on its face unwarranted. I don’t have enough of a sense of Ocana to be able to fairly assess him as a Tour rider, but that accomplishment of six stage wins and a Tour victory suggests that he was a remarkable rider. And Armstrong is Armstrong at this point – all the opinions on him have been opined at this point, and no point in doing it again, really, but on the road, he is a fair shout (at the least) to include with Hinault, Fignon, and Ocana.
So, if we make the dividing line winning five or more stages in a Tour victory, then no current rider matches the accomplishments of the five listed above. I suspect the argument that the Tour is not the same race as it was in the era of Merckx through Hinault holds some water, and deserves consideration in why the only rider since then to make it into the group is Armstrong, but all things considered, that does not explain Indurain or Lemond, clearly dominant Tour winners, at least in some sense of the term, not being able to accomplish what the others have. And, looking at this another way, there was a gap of twenty years between Fignon winning five stages and the Tour in 1984 and Armstrong doing so in 2004. This isn’t something that happens all the time, and perhaps we are just in an interim before it happens again.
Or, another way to look at this, claims to unusual dominance by any current Tour winners are probably premature. The numbers I am bringing into this are just one slice of the total picture, but I think this is a reasonable way to assess Tour performances. I do have the year-by-year breakdown if anyone wants me to post that in here, and I suppose it is mildly interesting reading.
...it's a matter of angles, how you look at it.
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