blutto said:
..GL was without a doubt a very talented cyclist...the equal of Merckx?...of Hinault?...of Indurain?....it would have much easier to make that claim if his TT results in the Tour had been world class ( where his unequalled numbers should have blazed the brightest )...and GL's Tour TT results are real good but certainly not world beating...certainly not against Hinault in 85 and 86 ( when pre-accident he was apparently at his best...and btw he could have taken the 85 Tour with a stellar performance in the last TT...Hinault had a broken nose but superman Greg could only take 5 sec out of him...could one imagine Merckx in the same situation )...and most certainly not against Fignon in 84...and heck, not even against Indurain in domestique mode in 90...
...your post paints a nice story...too bad about the race of truth numbers...they ruin a great yarn...
Cheers
blutto
A few things I think you should consider here:
Lemond won the Worlds at 21, finished 3rd in his second Tour and 1st in his Third, while riding on a French team with, at various times, Hinault and Fignon in it at the height of their powers. In addition Greg was a pioneer in a much simpler and straightforward era when he turned pro.
All throughout he was riding in the last era before hyper-specialization, blood doping, super-professionalism, even if Greg's presence at the tail end of it was an impetus providing factor toward that direction. Indeed it seemed that he participated in both, relaxing during the winter and putting on weight, then building form to reach peak at the Tour (but from much farther afield than the off-season starting point of today's riders, and without the sophisticated and monkish culture imposed on it by the corporate cycling of today). Not the blood doping I don't think, but the experimental use of aero and tech equipment, the science of training that was setting in, the increasing specialization that was paving the way for and building up to the new era; although I don't think he would have at all found himself at one with it in the sense of what that era actualy became. Armstrong was its incarnation, but Greg was too naive and candid to have been able to exist in it, let alone be at one with it.
As a climber he was certainly better than Hinault, while he was his match against the clock. Whereas the hunting accident cost him arguably the two most excellent years of his career in terms of potential power and form, and he was never really the same afterward. In this sense his results against Fignon in 89 were misleading, while he was clearly superior to the Frenchman in 86 and 90.
Any comparison to Indurain in the 90's, though, a great champion, yes, but the first to emerge in the new
sophisticated environment is specious. Also because Greg continued in his by now "old school" ways, was thus still a rider much more in the style of the previous decade than what was taking place then in cycling.
I also think, had he been French or Belgian, then he would have won much more and probably obtained a palmares decorously more in synch with his actual exceptional class -if not quite like a Merckx, then certainly Hinault, to say nothing of getting shot.
In short there were a series of biographical and historical factors at work, which seem to have conditioned the man's career in ways unique to the legacy of other champions before him or since.
But I say that cycling "died" when the EPO boom and blood tweaking era set in, making the assessment of the real talent of any of its champions down to the present rife with complications.
The type of doping during his career until Conconi’s work set in, was child’s play by comparison. The rides we saw were thus more “human,” than what came next beginning with Indurain, who probably would have still been great, though we can’t say if he would have been as good as he became during his Tour streak. This is the greatest problem that modern doping has inflicted in the sport, all sports: namely, we can’t tell any longer who the real
fuori classe are, compared to the best responders. In this sense Lemond was certainly “real”.
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