LeMond: Ullrich is the best rider of his generation, he would have won every Tour

[IzzyStradlin]

udo bolts says no

Source? Besides RR?

 

[El_ojo_del_Tigre]

that recent Juliet Macur book suggest Landis rode the 2005 TdF clean and came 9th anyway

Indeed it did:

Landis finished ninth in that 2005 Tour without blood-doping - an amazing feat. Leipheimer, who had transfused blood with Landis's help during the race finished sixth.

And then there's a story further on that says that Landis took out a BB before the TdF but had to re-infuse it before the Tour because of a problem with Del Moral. It's very hard to believe that that's the whole, unvarnished truth, especially as that entire part of the book came almost verbatim from Allen Lim, and Landis himself has said that he used transfusions in that Tour in an interview:

I did the same thing in 2004 and 2005 and 2006; the one variable was that I had my hip issues to deal with and therapy and things like that. I mean, in all of the Tours I did exactly the same amount of blood (transfusing) except the first one (2002); the first one I did one transfusion which is 500 millilitres and the next four I did 1000 militaries each, three separate times in 2006, because it was easier to maintain the continuous blood parameters that were being checked.

and in his e-mail to the head of US Cycling, which Macur incidentally cites elsewhere in her book:

2005: I had learned at this point how to do most of the transfusion
technicals and other things on my own so I hired Allen Lim as my assistant
to help with details and logistics. He helped Levi Leipheimer and I prepare
the transfusions for Levi and I and made sure they were kept at the proper
temperature. We both did two seperate transfusions that Tour however my
hematocrit was too low at the start so I did my first one a few days before
the start so as to not start with a deficit.

 

[blackcat]

Source? Besides RR?

just RR's sorry

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Besides rr, insiders whom I read about their opinion on Ullrich had one thing in common: they all saw Ullrich as the best rider if on a level playing field. D`Hondt, Hinault, Hamilton in his book, now Lemond. The all praised the german Wunderkind. I think I take their words.

 

[D-Queued]

This

Bolts says Ullrich was very good in the TT and possibly could've been good in classics but was dropped by sprinters when the road went up, until they gave him EPO and he flew.
Which makes perfect sense, he has the physical build type associated with EPO superresponders

Dave.

 

[JRTinMA]

Lemond should join this forum. This kind of idiotic comment makes him perfectly suited for this place.

 

[Cloxxki]

Doping just enough to be up there


vs.


Taking doping to new levels
+
Taking corruption to new levels
+
Taking team doping to new levels
+
Under false pretences get the whole sport behind you

And then the racing was kind of close.
Lemond would not have beaten Ullrich easily in a clean race.

How do we even know Ullrich responded to his doping?

Landis seems hugely talented to me also. The way he helped Lance at times. And that fateful stage where he supposedly peed too much T.
That was a genious ride, and not on a fresh blood bag but on scotch. He made the best from the bonk the day before which cost him minutes and saved his legs. If only UCI had decided to spike his sample a later stage...
I pick Lemond over Landis though, but I'd rather have Landis crash my couch. Dude should have a talkshow. I'd buy a TV to see that.

 

[Samson777]

Doping just enough to be up there

Who? Ullrich? If so, by "beeing up there" do you mean to win the tour? In that case, he really should get credit for not going all the way...

 

[IzzyStradlin]

Besides rr, insiders whom I read about their opinion on Ullrich had one thing in common: they all saw Ullrich as the best rider if on a level playing field. D`Hondt, Hinault, Hamilton in his book, now Lemond. The all praised the german Wunderkind. I think I take their words.

I don't know how good of a rider Ullrich really was, when he started doping or how many tours he could've won....but the number of fans, coaches, riders and pretentious apparel makers that have huge man-crushes on him is amazing.

If nothing else, he is the Eddy Merckx of bro-mance.

 

[The Hitch]

Armstrong also said the same thing in about 1997 when asked if he would ever go for a TdF win by a fairly naive American reporter. Don't recall the exact response but it was along the lines of "we've just seen the guy who can/will win the next 10 Tours, I don't think with the emergence of Ullrich that me riding to win the Tour is realistic."

Thats a cool story lol.

 

[86TDFWinner]

Lemond coming out with nonsense like this only confirms my opinion of him, a very talented bike rider but a bit of an idiot.
The fact is that no one knows who was the best undoped. Ullrich's career was heavily dominated by doping and his wins came at the height of the EPO doping era. Conjecture about who was the best was idiotic.

Well then if "no one really knows" who's right, why is Greg an "idiot" for voicing his opinion? You just said you didn't know yourself, so how is Greg "an idiot" for saying that, maybe he knows a bit more than we do, Explain?

 

[The Hitch]

Dave.

It was a theory, I've seen, been mentioned here a few years ago, that epo benefits those of greater physical build. Don't know what evidence there was to back it up.

 

[The Hitch]

The mistake some posters here, and maybe evenlemond himself is making, is comparing ullrich only to lance. Yes lance cheated more. That doesn't mean ullrich would have beaten everyone else.

This standard is actually quite often applied to dopers people like. I've heard it said of pantani and contador as well. Simoni said it of basso.

Considering the unseen factor of clean riders who could have competed and the fact that riders respond differently, and dope to different levels, it really is very difficult to say we know who would have won those tours, under different circumstances.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

The mistake some posters here, and maybe even lemond himself is making, is comparing ullrich only to lance. Yes lance cheated more. That doesn't mean ullrich would have beaten everyone else.

This standard is actually quite often applied to dopers people like. I've heard it said of pantani and contador as well. Simoni said it of basso.

Considering the unseen factor of clean riders who could have competed and the fact that riders respond differently, and dope to different levels, it really is very difficult to say we know who would have won those tours, under different circumstances.

Game, set and match.

Just take a look at Jan's Vuelta 1995 results.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1195459&postcount=963

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1195657&postcount=966

All we can say is a young Jan was able to climb with mister clean Edwig van Hooijdonck, who was not a climber.

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

Well ... an extremely young rider in his first GT riding clean just when EPO use was reaching its pinnacle, late in the season and we don't really know how he rode it (might have been extremely valuable for his team?)
Does that really say that much?
Moncoutié finished his first Tour as 75th, because of 1 good stage, climbed Ventoux with the likes of Piziks and Nazon

 

[D-Queued]

It was a theory, I've seen, been mentioned here a few years ago, that epo benefits those of greater physical build. Don't know what evidence there was to back it up.

I had thought that the point wrt Lance - along with sprinters that turned into Billy Goats - was that the BS about weight loss, etc., provided confirmation of the 'miraculous' powers of EPO. (see, I do believe in miracles)

EPO clearly helped the non-climbers (e.g. George & Frankie), including sprinters turned Green Jersey contenders (e.g. Zabel). But this wasn't mutually inclusive.

Thus, I could be wrong, but I didn't think that this was promoting a conclusion that non-skinny guys were better responders.

The chicken, and others like Mr. Polka Dot Virenque, seemed to respond pretty well.

Dave.

 

[Big Doopie]

Um... Armstrong like Riis has a natural hematocrit in high 30s. They both could improve exponentially on epo, much more than most.

 

[Neworld]

This

Bolts says Ullrich was very good in the TT and possibly could've been good in classics but was dropped by sprinters when the road went up, until they gave him EPO and he flew.
Which makes perfect sense, he has the physical build type associated with EPO superresponders

We've been through the minimalistic comments before...
1. Udo Bolts - his one opinion that Jan wasn't that good. And Udo is an authority on what? We could find tens of cyclists that think Jan was unparalleled naturally.
2. Jan being - overweight 'all the time', his slow cadence, his lack of motivation, poor training and planning, his lack of killer instinct...blah blah blah. All that nonsense is Paul Sherwin-like propaganda.

There is also quite a bit of factual information that during 2000-before 2003 Jan did NOT dope as much as UPS or Disco and still competed very well.

I have asked many times before: What were JU's metrics versus LA, IBasso, FL, J. Beloki. Although those measured values may not hold all the answers they are at least quantifiable. For those that don't think having a high VO2 is of merit...I say you compose a team of equal riders with VO2s of 72 and I'll compose mine of above 80 and during a GT we'll see who ends up with the best results.

No it is not as simple as that but statistically my team will perform better.

 

[Franklin]

Game, set and match.

Just take a look at Jan's Vuelta 1995 results.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1195459&postcount=963

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1195657&postcount=966

All we can say is a young Jan was able to climb with mister clean Edwig van Hooijdonck, who was not a climber.

Indeed, let's use his first GT as a 19 year old as benchmark. Of course, he was young, could have been ill, but this outlier is so ideal to spit in the face of a known doper that it must be the most important indicator of his skills.

I know your bile about cycling in the nineties, really, we all have that feeling, but this is becoming completely ridiculous.

There literally is ZERO evidence about who is or who isn't a "Superresponder".

Because we haven't got much more than rumors who was or wasn't doping in whichever regime. We know they doped... but how much? Even with Lance we only have the outline, not the hard numbers.

All this screaming about things that we can never substantiate make this forum an echo chamber. There are more than enough known facts to discuss but somehow we always are drawn to theories and hypotheses which in the end we can not proof.

 

[SundayRider]

It was a theory, I've seen, been mentioned here a few years ago, that epo benefits those of greater physical build. Don't know what evidence there was to back it up.

From a physiological point of view I have no idea. Purely from a logical point of view, if it was completely doping free then the heavier guys would lose many minutes in the mountains, the EPO helps them climb with climbers.

 

[UlleGigo]

As much as I'd like to think Ulle would have dominated clean (source: username) LeMond is talking out his you know what a bit here.

As has been mentioned, no one really knows what Ulle's capabilities were clean. He could have won '96 if he didn't have to tow that bald *** and then '97 he won in a waltz whilst trying to tow that bald ***.

Both performances were obviously heavily EPO influenced so I don't know what LeMond is basing his opinion on because '96 and '97 are not any sort of reliable guide in terms of a clean Ulle's ability.

On the flip side I think, as someone else mentioned and as Armstrong acknowledged, Ulle was no where near the organiser that Armstrong was in terms of doping programs. So as a result we never really got to see what a full *** Ulle looked like either post-98 (I would suggest Riis was the chief organizer prior to that) against post-cancer Armstrong.

In saying that I would say the year Ulle was at Bianchi ('02?) was probably the closest we got to full-*** Ulle versus full-*** Armstrong.

But we all know that even with the same programs that still isn't an indicator of who was the better rider purely on ability. So LeMond is either an idiot (could be) or winding up Armstrong or simply playing to the crowd being that the interview was for a German media outlet.

 

[movingtarget]

Ullrich emerged from the former East Germany just after the wall came down. That timing puts his formative years effectively at the height of the Stasi supported doping programs. Well documented to initiate doping in teenage years.

1. We know that he doped. That is enough to mess up any conjecture right there.

2. And, we know that he associated with former E. German experts. Minimally, that taints his formative years.

Using his own comments:

Adding 1 + 1 = you cannot separate his talent from the doping that we know of and of that doping which almost certainly preceded what we know of.

Dave.

The question is, what drugs are being taken by Lemond ? The more he talks the less sense he makes.

 

[Cloxxki]

For all we know, the whole doping peloton might not have been able to stay on the wheel of the few clean ones that were contending.
Perhaps the first 500 clean riders of the 90's would have been MUCH better than the dopers in clean mode.
It could be that all dopers would have been sub-pro level in a clean peloton.

It's difficult to quantify doping vs. clean. In any event, those that appear to have ridden clean, are not getting the respect they deserve. 95%+ of the field was unable to say no to doping, and the 5% not only said no, they stayed in the sport, delivering results above what could ever be expected. You don't do that without exceptional mind AND physiology.

Indeed, we don't know that a clean Ullrich would really have been top dog against his clean contemporaries. The gain he got from decades of (mild?) doping may well have exceeded his edge over the likes of Simeoni, Bassons, or whomever was truly clean. Even if we have to look to continental teams and below to find clean riders. And to get any sort of comparison going, we probably have to.

Also, there are bound to have been dopers who doped with the most evil of them, and only got little more than a mental boost from it. A naturally high Hct for instance would not help them, until the blood bags made their re-appearance. Had everyone been clean, these underrespondents could have floated to the top. Basso or Hincapie could have been such. Or Indurain. Or, we may just hope they would have been.

 

[Samson777]

The question is, what drugs are being taken by Lemond ? The more he talks the less sense he makes.

So perhaps Lemond is one of the few cases, where a ex pro cyclist do more drugs after his career have ended, than he did as a active pro?

Certainly this sounds weird, unless Lemond for some reason, was being over friendly with the Germans and went all out to please them.

 

[Benotti69]

The question is, what drugs are being taken by Lemond ? The more he talks the less sense he makes.

LeMond did break his back recently IIRC, so might be on pain killers for that!