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

[kingjr]

I think even most dopers wouldn't like the idea too much of people giving them stuff without their knowledge.

 

[Race Radio]

That isn't anti doping, it's pro LeMond.
When he could use the doping issue to leverage his own position, he used it.

Well, his lawyer did.....

LeMond was a product of Renault, he must have had his eyes closed if he didn't encounter the same substances being offered there.

Nonsense. Greg argued back and forth with PDM for months about the doping on the team. He left because of the pressure. PDM didn't care, he was not riding well.

Greg has always been against doping. Read "Slaying the badger". Teammates, staff, friends, all give examples of Greg in the 80's speaking out against doping. Laul Koechli, who ran a clean team in Helvetia/La Suiise without any needles and said LeMond won the Tour clean. Before people say that was because he was his manager, Koechli never said Hinault won the tour clean and he was his manager too. Bernard Tapie, owner of the team said the only guys he knew that definitely didnt dope were LeMond and Bauer.

In the 90's Greg publicly called out the Italian doctors who were polluting the sport, long before Armstrong ever won a Tour.

 

[Race Radio]

If that is the whole key-point on which Lemond is being seen as vocally anti-doping call me unimpressed.

It's his lawyer saying Lemond has issues with people putting stuff inside him without his consent (and considering the standard of cyclists that deserves some recognition I guess). And this was in the context of a dispute with that team.

This is not Lemond saying: Doping is rife in the peleton! This sport needs to clean up!

So Race Radio, if this is it I am very much reinforced in the view I have of the 80'ies. Lemond wasn't particularly vocally anti-doping as a rider. What we have so far is his lawyer making a strong statement in an US newspaper. And that's okay.

Just because you didn't remember reading it in Winning magazine does not mean it did not happen.

What do people who actually raced with Greg say?

Phil Anderson

LeMond has raced at the highest level.

He has been involved in business since his retirement, and has always been an advocate of clean cycling.

I recall LeMond’s absolute stance against any medications during his career. He believed he would have won more Tours if it was a level playing field.
He, like many cyclists, has had to deal with losses at the hands of the cheats. He, like many, chose not to take advice and gifts of treatments from soigneur’s ‘vitamins’ – the contents of which were not know to him.

 

[hrotha]

I think some people are forgetting Bassons didn't speak before Festina either. That opened up a whole new period in terms of public discourse about doping.

 

[MacRoadie]

Just because you didn't remember reading it in Winning magazine does not mean it did not happen.

Let me check...nope not there so obviously could never have happened...

 

[pmcg76]

Nonsense. Greg argued back and forth with PDM for months about the doping on the team. He left because of the pressure. PDM didn't care, he was not riding well.

Greg has always been against doping. Read "Slaying the badger". Teammates, staff, friends, all give examples of Greg in the 80's speaking out against doping. Laul Koechli, who ran a clean team in Helvetia/La Suiise without any needles and said LeMond won the Tour clean. Before people say that was because he was his manager, Koechli never said Hinault won the tour clean and he was his manager too. Bernard Tapie, owner of the team said the only guys he knew that definitely didnt dope were LeMond and Bauer.

In the 90's Greg publicly called out the Italian doctors who were polluting the sport, long before Armstrong ever won a Tour.

LeMond may have been privately against doping but he was hardly outspoken publically on the subject. I have no recollection of him calling out the Italian doctors. I know when he retired he said in an interview that "there were some questionable things going on in cycling" and thas was as far as he went on the subject. It was hardly in 94 that the questionable things began!!

I have no problems with believing in LeMond but when you look at the teams he was with, the doctors he was loosely connected with and some of his amazing transformations from gruppetto to No 1, if he were around today nobody would believe in him yet there are plenty of posters who lambast every current rider, yet herald LeMond as the superclean hero and fail to see any degree of hypocrisy. The fact that he still seems to have such high regard for the like's of Sean Kelly, Cyril Guimard and the Renault team would also see him miserably fail the clinic doper worshipper test.

That is why I call it the LeMond Exception rule. Whatever thing is used to tar a current rider with the doping accusation, LeMond seem's to be exempt from it. Transforming from gruppetto at the Giro to Tour winner in less than a month, oh Greg could do that but nobody else could or can. Beat riders on EPO, Greg could do that but nobody else can. Admire dopers, oh Greg can do that too.

The million dollar question is if LeMond were around today with all the latest technology, training methods etc. What would he be capable of doing? Tour Winner? Top 10? Top 50?

 

[Digger]

One year greg was blaming his muscular wasting disease for not being competitive...later he was blaming EPO...also greg seem to have a very inconsistent attitude to dopers.
Some are ok with him.

I particularly liked that photo of him riding in the backseat with Indurain in Paris last year...

 

[Netserk]

LeMond may have been privately against doping but he was hardly outspoken publically on the subject. I have no recollection of him calling out the Italian doctors. I know when he retired he said in an interview that "there were some questionable things going on in cycling" and thas was as far as he went on the subject. It was hardly in 94 that the questionable things began!!

I have no problems with believing in LeMond but when you look at the teams he was with, the doctors he was loosely connected with and some of his amazing transformations from gruppetto to No 1, if he were around today nobody would believe in him yet there are plenty of posters who lambast every current rider, yet herald LeMond as the superclean hero and fail to see any degree of hypocrisy. The fact that he still seems to have such high regard for the like's of Sean Kelly, Cyril Guimard and the Renault team would also see him miserably fail the clinic doper worshipper test.

That is why I call it the LeMond Exception rule. Whatever thing is used to tar a current rider with the doping accusation, LeMond seem's to be exempt from it. Transforming from gruppetto at the Giro to Tour winner in less than a month, oh Greg could do that but nobody else could or can. Beat riders on EPO, Greg could do that but nobody else can. Admire dopers, oh Greg can do that too.

The million dollar question is if LeMond were around today with all the latest technology, training methods etc. What would he be capable of doing? Tour Winner? Top 10? Top 50?

There's quite a difference between returning to or near the level one had before an injury, and then a transformation a la Froome.

As for beating EPO opposition/dopers in general: It doesn't matter what your opposition takes, it matters how strong they are. Riders (dopers) today are far stronger than they were back then (when he won).

 

[Race Radio]

LeMond may have been privately against doping but he was hardly outspoken publically on the subject. I have no recollection of him calling out the Italian doctors.

Interview with Bicycling Magazine, Late 1997. Greg was away from the sport but still talked about the rumors he had heard. His comments come across as a bit naive, not surprising as he was no longer a Pro

The talent hasn't changed at all. I do think, however, that the Italians have changed the sport in a really bad way. It has become much more medical.

Bicyclist: Medical?

LeMond: Yes, medical.

Bicyclist: Drugs?

LeMond: [hesitates] I don't know that it's drugs exactly...

Bicyclist: Then let me restate the question. Do you feel that drug use is prevalent in the pro peloton?

LeMond: Well, it's hard to say. I don't know if it's drugs, but there are substances. I don't know that I buy the excuse by people who say they didn't perform well in a one-day race because the winners were on drugs. In a one-day race, there's no reason you cannot perform as well as someone taking drugs. EPO (Erythropoeitin, a naturally-ocurring and synthesized hormone that increases red blood cell count) just increases your red blood cells. Here in America you can train at altitude any time you want and get the same benefit from altitude as from EPO. Steroids, on the other hand, accelerate recovery. I went steroid free throughout my whole career. There were always rumors of guys taking stuff, but more than steroids it was the cortisone, the catabolic, not the anabolic. Of course there were tests, and people have been caught with testosterone. The Italians, somewhere in the '80s, figured out how to take small amounts to be on the legal side of it, which does help recovery and would help tremendously in a three week race. I've heard two sides of the drug issue. First of all, you have to understand the doping mentality. I don't think there's a rider in the peloton that prefers to take drugs. It's simply what doing to keep up with competition, and if they think everyone's getting away with it, they feel like they need to use it, too. Half of these guys haven't finished high school, have a wife and three kids at home, and if they don't perform, they won't get paid. The problem with Americans is that our ethics are sometimes a bit nave-don't get me wrong, the American ethic is really good, I like the American attitude, but it doesn't really bite into the reality of situation. I know my old teammate, Eric Boyer, retired because he didn't want to touch the stuff, and I know many other people who made it through clean, such as Andy Hampsten and Steve Bauer. Every rider on La Vie Claire was clean, that was Paul Keochli's big deal to make sure he had a clean team. But I do know in the early '90s there was a huge movement in Italy. Riders that had been racing for six or seven years were suddenly riding really well. To me, that looks a little suspicious. The drug issue is something I often thought about during my career. Toward the end, I always wondered, 'Is everyone taking drugs, while I stay clean, causing me to perform so poorly?' But there wasn't a drug in the world that would've helped me. One thing I do know is that a teammate of mine went to an Italian team and he died of a heart attack a year later. It was a little disappointing. I do think the riders are trying to say, 'Hey, we're for control testing.' The riders are the ones who pushed for the haematocrit level tests, so people would stay within the limits.

 

[red_flanders]

Interview with Bicycling Magazine, Late 1997. Greg was away from the sport but still talked about the rumors he had heard. His comments come across as a bit naive, not surprising as he was no longer a Pro

Glad to see you on top of this and posting responses. It seems every few months someone comes around and starts speculating or talking about LeMond with all kinds of revisionism, generally born of not having been around at the time and experienced LeMond's career first-hand.

I think it's difficult to imagine what it looked like back in those days given what we see today.

You knew who the champions were going to be before they ever turned a pedal in anger in the pros. Merckx, Hinault, Fignon, LeMond...all were clearly going to be dominant riders from their amateur days.

 

[pmcg76]

Interview with Bicycling Magazine, Late 1997. Greg was away from the sport but still talked about the rumors he had heard. His comments come across as a bit naive, not surprising as he was no longer a Pro

Late 97, after the introduction of the 50% limit. I think that is what you call coming to the party a bit late. There was an interview with Hein Verbruggen in Cycle Sport early 97 in which the widespread usage of EPO was discussed and how the UCI were trying to(allegedly combat it). In 96 there was an article in the same magazine about the quest to find a test for EPO.

Nicolas Aubier(who was a team-mate of LeMond) and Giles Delion already talked about the usage of EPO in L'Equipe early 97. Sandro DonatI's dossier was published in late 96 observing the widespread usage of EPO in ITALY. Saying in late 97 that the Italians changed the sport was like stating the obvious, every man and his dog knew EPO was being used.

There are some interesting snippets in that article but a lot of it does come across as willing blindness. LeMond didn't know most were on EPO in 94??? Maybe his team and a few other's werent but he was sure to know about it as I mentioned in my earlier post "he alluded to strange things happening in cycling".

Also interesting to note what he says about still being able to win one day races against EPO riders. Wait a second, must be another LeMond exception rule

 

[pmcg76]

There's quite a difference between returning to or near the level one had before an injury, and then a transformation a la Froome.

As for beating EPO opposition/dopers in general: It doesn't matter what your opposition takes, it matters how strong they are. Riders (dopers) today are far stronger than they were back then (when he won).

Doesn't have to be Froome, could be any rider. I remember a few crying about how Nibali was nowhere in Poland last year and then riding with the top guys in the Vuelta. Not possible was the general consensus.

The last sentence doesn't really make sense to me. How are dopers now far stronger?? To follow that logic, then the theoretically clean riders are also a lot stronger.

I should also note, nobody seems willing to put forward an opinion on how a top level LeMond, using all available modern technology/training would fare in the current peloton.

 

[Netserk]

Doesn't have to be Froome, could be any rider. I remember a few crying about how Nibali was nowhere in Poland last year and then riding with the top guys in the Vuelta. Not possible was the general consensus.

The last sentence doesn't really make sense to me. How are dopers now far stronger?? To follow that logic, then the theoretically clean riders are also a lot stronger.

No it wasn't. It was the opinion of some. I certainly didn't subscribe to it. I only remember very few saying that.

I don't think you understood me regarding your second paragraph.

 

[pmcg76]

No it wasn't. It was the opinion of some. I certainly didn't subscribe to it. I only remember very few saying that.

I don't think you understood me regarding your second paragraph.

Then perhaps you could explain it.

 

[Netserk]

Then perhaps you could explain it.

It is already explained.

 

[kingjr]

Glad to see you on top of this and posting responses. It seems every few months someone comes around and starts speculating or talking about LeMond with all kinds of revisionism, generally born of not having been around at the time and experienced LeMond's career first-hand.

When Greg finished his career I was 2 years old, so I'm bound to ask questions if I want to know what he's about.

 

[pmcg76]

It is already explained.

But doesn't make any sense. How are the current doped riders stronger than the riders from the EPO years? Are you saying the general level of rider is higher? Are they getting bigger benefits than before? What does it mean? There is no context, just a statement that current doping riders are stronger,

 

[Race Radio]

Late 97, after the introduction of the 50% limit. I think that is what you call coming to the party a bit late. There was an interview with Hein Verbruggen in Cycle Sport early 97 in which the widespread usage of EPO was discussed and how the UCI were trying to(allegedly combat it). In 96 there was an article in the same magazine about the quest to find a test for EPO.

Nicolas Aubier(who was a team-mate of LeMond) and Giles Delion already talked about the usage of EPO in L'Equipe early 97. Sandro DonatI's dossier was published in late 96 observing the widespread usage of EPO in ITALY. Saying in late 97 that the Italians changed the sport was like stating the obvious, every man and his dog knew EPO was being used.

There are some interesting snippets in that article but a lot of it does come across as willing blindness. LeMond didn't know most were on EPO in 94??? Maybe his team and a few other's werent but he was sure to know about it as I mentioned in my earlier post "he alluded to strange things happening in cycling".

Also interesting to note what he says about still being able to win one day races against EPO riders. Wait a second, must be another LeMond exception rule

I see your point.....but I also know in the time period we are talking about Greg really didn't pay much attention to the sport, was living in the US, was very much out of touch with what was going on. It is understandable that he would be a bit behind the curve. He had dedicated his life to the sport and was finally able to do something else besides ride his bike.

 

[Benotti69]

I have no problems with believing in LeMond but when you look at the teams he was with, the doctors he was loosely connected with and some of his amazing transformations from gruppetto to No 1,

LeMond, grupetto to No.1? What drugs are you taking? First TdF,1984, 3rd!

He went from the podium in the beginning of his career to grupetto due to EPO use of the likes of Indurain, Chiapucci, Roche, Rominger........

If LeMond doped there has been 21 years for someone to out him as a big hypocrite!

 

[red_flanders]

When Greg finished his career I was 2 years old, so I'm bound to ask questions if I want to know what he's about.

I certainly hope my post wasn't taken as "don't ask questions". Rather the opposite.

 

[pmcg76]

LeMond, grupetto to No.1? What drugs are you taking? First TdF,1984, 3rd!

He went from the podium in the beginning of his career to grupetto due to EPO use of the likes of Indurain, Chiapucci, Roche, Rominger........

If LeMond doped there has been 21 years for someone to out him as a big hypocrite!

Oh that old chestnut, LeMond could still beat EPO Roche and Chiappucci in a TT but finished outside the time-limit in the mountains because EPO only works in mountains or something like that

Well shows how much you know, Rominger didn't ride the Tour in 91/92. LeMond didn't ride the Tour in 93 when Rominger had his breakout and both dropped out of the 94 race.

In 89 and 90, LeMond was riding in the back groups in the mountains at the Giro, in 1990 he was so bad, he was struggling at Tour De Trump which was a US domestic field with a few European Pro teams.

If Andy Schleck shows up at the Tour this year in top shape, will anyone believe he did it naturally?

 

[pmcg76]

I see your point.....but I also know in the time period we are talking about Greg really didn't pay much attention to the sport, was living in the US, was very much out of touch with what was going on. It is understandable that he would be a bit behind the curve. He had dedicated his life to the sport and was finally able to do something else besides ride his bike.

Maybe but I am sure LeMond had a fair idea what was happening by 94, that was the year of Gewiss etc. Almost all accounts I have read of riders changing to EPO seem to be in the 92/93/94 time-frame and it seemed to be common knowledge.

When did Lance promote EPO at Motorola, early 95 was it? I think the French teams bar Festina were the last to switch to EPO because they were living in denial.

 

[Benotti69]

Oh that old chestnut, LeMond could still beat EPO Roche and Chiappucci in a TT but finished outside the time-limit in the mountains because EPO only works in mountains or something like that

Well shows how much you know, Rominger didn't ride the Tour in 91/92. LeMond didn't ride the Tour in 93 when Rominger had his breakout and both dropped out of the 94 race.

In 89 and 90, LeMond was riding in the back groups in the mountains at the Giro, in 1990 he was so bad, he was struggling at Tour De Trump which was a US domestic field with a few European Pro teams.

If Andy Schleck shows up at the Tour this year in top shape, will anyone believe he did it naturally?

So LeMond doped and has been parading himself as an anti doping advocate for 21 years and no one out there thought stuff this guy, i remember him with a syringe hanging out of his **** a few times in 1990........somehow i think when LeMond was 'mouthing' off his anti doping, a few out there would have felt their jobs were threatened and tried put a stop to his verbal overtures about what was going on in the peloton, by outing him as an hypocrite! No? Or does that not fit with you......

LeMond first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France. I think the sport doesn't like guys like LeMond talking about doping, so why was he let away with it?

 

[red_flanders]

Oh that old chestnut, LeMond could still beat EPO Roche and Chiappucci in a TT but finished outside the time-limit in the mountains because EPO only works in mountains or something like that

He never said that. Why make it up?

In 89 and 90, LeMond was riding in the back groups in the mountains at the Giro, in 1990 he was so bad, he was struggling at Tour De Trump which was a US domestic field with a few European Pro teams.

In the back groups? Why bring in the revisionism?

If Andy Schleck shows up at the Tour this year in top shape, will anyone believe he did it naturally?

Does anyone believe the talent of Andy Schleck is comparable to the talent of Greg LeMond?

Does anyone believe the level of the field now is comparable to the level of the field in 1989? There isn't a GT contender who will be racing the Tour clean this year. There might have been a few odd guys on oxygen vector drugs in 1989. Everyone in the field is at a higher level.

 

[red_flanders]

Maybe but I am sure LeMond had a fair idea what was happening by 94, that was the year of Gewiss etc. Almost all accounts I have read of riders changing to EPO seem to be in the 92/93/94 time-frame and it seemed to be common knowledge.

When did Lance promote EPO at Motorola, early 95 was it? I think the French teams bar Festina were the last to switch to EPO because they were living in denial.

How would you have any idea what was common knowledge? No one who wasn't doing it knew what was going on when it first hit. It took years for some teams to catch on. That LeMond, who by all accounts rode clean as a whistle, would have had no idea is not only believable but the likely conclusion.

Of course on the other hand, he's been lying for 3 decades, all the guys who rode with him and say he was utterly clean are lying or clueless, etc. etc. That all has to be true for your silly scenarios to pan out. It's not. Clueless.