BroDeal said:Really? LeMond's palmares are filled with things like 2nd at Milan San Remo, 3rd at LBL, 4th at Paris-Roubaix... One of the races he really wanted to win was P-R.
Sorry, this one does not completely fly. Certainly we have Milan San Remo and a good placement in P-N, but for example LBL is pretty much in late april where Jan also did some good things in that timeslot (rund um kon for example or some decent showings in the Giro).
We could argue that it was just a few years where Greg was good early on, but that has the problem of for and after the hunting incident, so it's impossible to say much about that.
What we do know that Greg also was a classics rider of some accomplishment, but he certainly had the shortest season of all his peers. If we compare him with guys like Hinault and Fignon he has a very lean allround palmares indeed.
The P-R statement are primarily from his columns, but really Greg finished P-R 4 times and only once managed a top 10. You imply he was really aiming to win it, while the evidence seems to suggest he didn't compete most of his career.
really, if you are making a case that Greg wasn't just focussed on GT's I would like you to put Lance's schedule against Greg's. You will find Lance also had decent classics (yes even in his TdF years) and disappeared after the WC. Simply put... reading much in Jan's build-up seems pretty pointless. We know he was big time doper, that's enough really.