Pantani 99 vs Armstrong 99

[FoxxyBrown1111]

What I wanted to point out...

OK, assume Pantani in 99 better than 98. Still would have had the Giro in his legs. And who knows? If LA was followed by Pantani in the mountains he would have put on the afterburner not only in Sestriere but every other stage too.

Let´s give the point the 0 TT km was a little bit over the top by me... The fact that the TT kms were there in 99, LA would have smashed Pantani in those... Ergo: Easy win by LA the machine.
Pantani on desperate mode to gain time back after losing big in the TTs; suicide attacks taken back by LAs blood train. A totally exhausted Pantani may then not even on the podium in Paris.

 

[roundabout]

in 99 Armstrong only had Livingston and Hamilton essentially. Although they did a good job containing Pantani in 2000

 

[Dr. Juice]

OK, assume Pantani in 99 better than 98. Still would have had the Giro in his legs. And who knows? If LA was followed by Pantani in the mountains he would have put on the afterburner not only in Sestriere but every other stage too.

Let´s give the point the 0 TT km was a little bit over the top by me... The fact that the TT kms were there in 99, LA would have smashed Pantani in those... Ergo: Easy win by LA the machine.
Pantani on desperate mode to gain time back after losing big in the TTs; suicide attacks taken back by LAs blood train. A totally exhausted Pantani may then not even on the podium in Paris.

Okay i think it's safe to assume we won't agree on this matter because I have the view that Pantani would outclimb Sestrieres-Armstrong easily by at least 1 minute in his best form. And I think Lance would've lost his calmness. You're of the opinion that they would have been very tight in climbing.
Everyone to his view.

 

[Dr. Juice]

I would agree with this. We saw hints of exactly such a thing when Armstrong went up against Iban Mayo in (I think) the 2004 Dauphinè.

But what isn't being mentioned in all of this is Armstrong's ruthlessness to win at all costs. Or as Floyd has put it: It wasn't about [Armstrong] winning, it was about making the other guy lose.

I am confident that Lance and Co. would've found a way to make Pantani "lose" had he been at the TdF in '99.

There's more that goes on than just what the cameras show us on the road.

Great point. I did not see it this way. He may have done sth to Marco in conjunction with Verbruggen , making him go positive. But not in '99.
2001 onwards he had everyone in his hand , UCI included. 5 out of 10 best climbers in his own team etc.

He would not have intimidated Il Pirata who did do his talk on the road.
But maybe lost the 99 Tour or just won it with few seconds between them .... then under the threat to lose from Pantani...somewhere in 2000 or 2001... phone call to Verbruggen and Pantani out of the way anyway.

 

[ultimobici]

The LA that just beat the Madone record in the summer leading up to the TdF 1999? Pantani would have been shell-shocked and step off his bike, going home...

The Madone is an insignificant bump in the Cote d'Azur. It's not a hard climb at all, far from it. What it is is an ideal climb for assessing one's form that is convenient if one lives in Nice as Armstrong did.

 

[deValtos]

He would not have intimidated Il Pirata who did do his talk on the road.

Isn't that precisely what happened in 2000 though ?

Pantani took a hit at Hautacam and after Ventoux he and Armstrong were verbally dishing out blows in the media and press conferences. Pantani got so riled up he went on a suicide break with 120km to go on the Morzine stage which failed and shortly quit the tour after. Pantani was a fragile soul.

 

[kingjr]

Isn't that precisely what happened in 2000 though ?

Pantani took a hit at Hautacam and after Ventoux he and Armstrong were verbally dishing out blows in the media and press conferences. Pantani got so riled up he went on a suicide break with 120km to go on the Morzine stage which failed and shortly quit the tour after. Pantani was a fragile soul.

Pantani was in no position to win the Tour, he had his stage-win and proven that he could outclimb Lance, to Morzine he just wanted to stir sh.t up, almost succeeded in ruining Lance's tour.

 

[zlev11]

i've actually been watching the 2000 Tour this week, and i've been wondering what exactly everyone was using at that Tour. there was rumors of an EPO test, so if we are to believe Lance, he used just one blood bag (presumably before Ventoux) with Hamilton and Livingston. this is also corroborated by Tyler in his book. so how was Lance so good on Hautacam, then? the rest of the team vanished on the Aubisque, but Lance won the stage by about 3 minutes over everyone that he started the climb with (Heras, Virenque, Jimenez, and Beloki started the final climb ahead by a minute or so). and what was Pantani using? do you think he was also using transfusions or was he risking it with EPO? the rest of the race seems relatively clean, although Beloki and Ullrich were most likely using some form of blood vector doping to stay with Lance and Pantani for as long as they did on Ventoux, and obviously everyone was still training with EPO.

 

[roundabout]

I thought the EPO test became available only for the Olympics that year

 

[zlev11]

yeah but there were rumors about it being used at the Tour, Lance himself said Ferrari warned him about it, which is why they set up the transfusions

 

[jens_attacks]

don't know but most likely lance was on a full bag for hautacam. he's lying about it of course. it is to my knowledge, the biggest gap on a single mtf, 2 min 30sec. faster than the second fastest in modern times(maybe ivailo gabrovski?). not even marco did that in his career. and the greatest peformance of lance on a tour climb also.
actually i do believe that marco could have arrived 1 min slower than lance on hautacam but he collapsed mentally when armstrong rode away from him with such ease. he just shook his head in disbelief and let him go. marco i think expected again to easily beat everyone like in his golden years but texan robocop went nuclear there.
something happened to the others before hautacam stage because except lance, everyone seemed scared to use the full suitcase of courage, they were all kind of human on this climb...lance 15th fastest time ever, moreau 49th. even if i regard lance as a full deserved 7 tour winner and a big champ, things like hautacam 200 where one rides extra gear compared to the others, shouldn't happen again.

 

[Dr. Juice]

Pantani was in no position to win the Tour, he had his stage-win and proven that he could outclimb Lance, to Morzine he just wanted to stir sh.t up, almost succeeded in ruining Lance's tour.

Yeah that's correct. Actually he mentioned a light bronchitis in an interview with the italian Alessandra di Stefano after winning and dropping Armstrong in Courchevel. Which resulted in getting sick the next days.
He wanted to just sh!t on Lance with that attack. At one point everyone was attacking him. Resulted in a crisis. Marco said he had cramps and was close to vomiting from the penultimate climb (or the climb before) onwards.

@ Jens_attacks

I also wondered why everyone was so slow on Hautacam. Regarding Pantani - yes he shaked his head in disbelief and declared after the stage that he had never seen anything like that. He was at 80 % max and cracked.
Ullrich, Beloki, Heras all the others - they were more than 2 minutes slower than Nibali on this years TdF.
I suspect nobody there was on Epo because of the new test. Nobody knew how it worked. They just knew " Epo now detectable" . Only later they realised ( the doctors) how to pass the tests. Probably different timing of blood bags thus big jumps in perfomances.

 

[hiero2]

Pantani's family had been suggesting he was killed for over 10 years now. What changed ?

...

An Italian has won The Tour. Which brings Pantani back into the limelight - as "the LAST Italian to . . ."

What would be the motivation to do this?

Well - if we were writing a novel, or for the tv or a movie, he angered his dealer, maybe by not paying his bills, so the dealer decides to have a little fun - and leave a lesson behind. In real life? Who knows - people can have strange motives.

Personally, I think they are chasing ghosts and chimeras, but maybe, just maybe, the family is on to something.

Like someone mentioned here earlier: Pantani's climbing form in '99 was probably the limit of human ability under those doping rules. . . .

You know, that is an interesting take on how things shook out. "The limit of human ability under those doping rules." I like that. Put that together with Vayer's speculations - it doesn't exactly make for rocket science - but it does kinda add to the rule-of-thumb ground rules for us average joes to look at a scene and judge "Doped? Or not Doped?". Or even "Doped? How much?"

 

[Dr. Juice]

You know, that is an interesting take on how things shook out. "The limit of human ability under those doping rules." I like that. Put that together with Vayer's speculations - it doesn't exactly make for rocket science - but it does kinda add to the rule-of-thumb ground rules for us average joes to look at a scene and judge "Doped? Or not Doped?". Or even "Doped? How much?"

The sad thing about EPO is that ( having minimum + x % performance enhancement and maximum x % ) you know standout climbers like Pantani would have had the possibility to do a Top 10 in a GT.
Performance advantage on a mountain finish using Epo -> 2-4 minutes faster, maybe 4 is even exaggerated, I only assume those numbers but it should be in this range from what I've read.
Standout climbers could have climbed Alpe d' Huez around 40 minutes or even under 40 minutes. Top 3 or Top 5 in a mountain finish. Very good climbing level but not extraterrestrial clinic stuff. Top5 level in the first mountain stages then maybe suffering in the last mt stages without the benefit of EPO recovery.At least it applies for a crack like Pantani.
Unless now somebody comes up with a theory that EPO gives you 6 minutes at every mountain finish. I don't believe even EPO could do that.

Others like Heras would have classified between Top 10 and Top 15, Moncoutié style. But you know of course how much EPO gives you, all the others take it, and you could win Tour, Giro or Vuelta...

 

[Granville57]

Great point. I did not see it this way. He may have done sth to Marco in conjunction with Verbruggen , making him go positive. But not in '99.
2001 onwards he had everyone in his hand , UCI included. 5 out of 10 best climbers in his own team etc.

He would not have intimidated Il Pirata who did do his talk on the road.
But maybe lost the 99 Tour or just won it with few seconds between them .... then under the threat to lose from Pantani...somewhere in 2000 or 2001... phone call to Verbruggen and Pantani out of the way anyway.

I agree with all of this as well. But I'm thinking that in '99, there could've been collusion with other teams, and payoffs etc, if need to be, to make Pantani "lose" (or any other similar tactics). Lance already had a long history of doing just that, so there's no reason to believe that it wouldn't have been "business as usual."

I agree that Lance, in 1999, didn't have the far-reaching influence on others that he would later acquire, but he would've found a way. If anything, Lance was even more brazen and cocky in his younger years. He had less to lose at that point. Pantani would've have lost. Lance would've won. Lance always won.


Until he didn't, of course.

 

[MonkeyFace]

The sad thing about EPO is that ( having minimum + x % performance enhancement and maximum x % ) you know standout climbers like Pantani would have had the possibility to do a Top 10 in a GT.
Performance advantage on a mountain finish using Epo -> 2-4 minutes faster, maybe 4 is even exaggerated, I only assume those numbers but it should be in this range from what I've read.
Standout climbers could have climbed Alpe d' Huez around 40 minutes or even under 40 minutes. Top 3 or Top 5 in a mountain finish. Very good climbing level but not extraterrestrial clinic stuff. Top5 level in the first mountain stages then maybe suffering in the last mt stages without the benefit of EPO recovery.At least it applies for a crack like Pantani.
Unless now somebody comes up with a theory that EPO gives you 6 minutes at every mountain finish. I don't believe even EPO could do that.

Others like Heras would have classified between Top 10 and Top 15, Moncoutié style. But you know of course how much EPO gives you, all the others take it, and you could win Tour, Giro or Vuelta...

It doesn't work like that. Some get more out of EPO than others. Managers when recruiting would try to sign riders who got some results with low hemotocrit with the idea they would have more to gain with EPO. Look how Lance rode prior to meeting Ferrari, he only finished one tour. He comes back and somehow has figured out how to time trial and climb better than everyone else. It is impossible to say how Pantani would have ridden clean. Probably would still be a good climber but who knows. Lance couldn't anything worth a damn in 2010 when he was under the microscope after Landis's allegations and he still was doing something because his blood values were all over the place.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

I am confident that Lance and Co. would've found a way to make Pantani "lose" had he been at the TdF in '99.

There's more that goes on than just what the cameras show us on the road.

You mean like the Emperor of Cycling showing up in the Giro 1999 right when Pantani is busted for a too high htc?

Sometimes coincidences arent a coincidence.

Then, on the topic. Le Breton is right, Pantani would have lost five minutes on the Passage du Gois stage, at least four minutes in the first TT. Where would he have taken back that time? A few minutes to Sestriere, a few to Alpe d'Huez, in the Pyrennees?
http://www.lagrandeboucle.com/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=46

No way.

Not even mentioning the last TT of only 57K.

Pantani would have been on the third step of the podium, just like with Big Mig.

Question: where there traces of EPO in Zulle's samples that year?

 

[Dr. Juice]

I didn't realise the route was THAT bad (pyrenees). Just looked it up. Probably one of the worst designs ever. Guess they didn't want another climber taking it, although 98 was not much better either.
I have to step back. No mountain no chance. 2000-2005 at least had 4 decent mountain stages.

 

[simoni]

don't know but most likely lance was on a full bag for hautacam. he's lying about it of course. it is to my knowledge, the biggest gap on a single mtf, 2 min 30sec. faster than the second fastest in modern times(maybe ivailo gabrovski?). not even marco did that in his career. and the greatest peformance of lance on a tour climb also.
actually i do believe that marco could have arrived 1 min slower than lance on hautacam but he collapsed mentally when armstrong rode away from him with such ease. he just shook his head in disbelief and let him go. marco i think expected again to easily beat everyone like in his golden years but texan robocop went nuclear there.
something happened to the others before hautacam stage because except lance, everyone seemed scared to use the full suitcase of courage, they were all kind of human on this climb...lance 15th fastest time ever, moreau 49th. even if i regard lance as a full deserved 7 tour winner and a big champ, things like hautacam 200 where one rides extra gear compared to the others, shouldn't happen again.

In addition however, the weather on the Hautacam stage was dreadful.

 

[jens_attacks]

well yes we know that lance loved bad weather but still 2:30 + on everyone is quite a lot

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

well yes we know that lance loved bad weather but still 2:30 + on everyone is quite a lot

I tend to agree Jens:
http://lagrandeboucle.com/article.php3?id_article=481

 

[staubsauger]

Isn't this whole discussion based on the idea that Pantani at the Tour still would've had the same opportunities and possibilities to prepare with dope as Lance had alle the time, because he was covered?

In that case ... How should Lance have beaten Pantani as he wasn't a time trialer or a climber before? I don't see this. With the same level of stuff Pantani would've ridden nearly equally strong in the tt and outclimb Armstrong easily.

And the part with "destroying Pantani". Isn't that what exactly happended? He was made 100% persona non grata and evil man.

 

[Akuryo]

Isn't this whole discussion based on the idea that Pantani at the Tour still would've had the same opportunities and possibilities to prepare with dope as Lance had alle the time, because he was covered?

In that case ... How should Lance have beaten Pantani as he wasn't a time trialer or a climber before? I don't see this. With the same level of stuff Pantani would've ridden nearly equally strong in the tt and outclimb Armstrong easily.

And the part with "destroying Pantani". Isn't that what exactly happended? He was made 100% persona non grata and evil man.

That is the thing. We don't know who was using what. And how much. And Lance 99 was a good time trialer. Pantani not. Read a few pages back and you see he would have lost close to 7 or 8 minutes in the TTs alone. And the 99 Tour was not hard enough in the mountains to gain so much time for Pantani even IF he was the better climber.

So no, Pantani would still have lost in 99.

 

[Jamie1012]

It doesn't work like that. Some get more out of EPO than others. Managers when recruiting would try to sign riders who got some results with low hemotocrit with the idea they would have more to gain with EPO. Look how Lance rode prior to meeting Ferrari, he only finished one tour. He comes back and somehow has figured out how to time trial and climb better than everyone else. It is impossible to say how Pantani would have ridden clean. Probably would still be a good climber but who knows. Lance couldn't anything worth a damn in 2010 when he was under the microscope after Landis's allegations and he still was doing something because his blood values were all over the place.

Does anybody know what Pantani's lowest measured haematocrit was, out of interest?

 

[Gregga]

Does anybody know what Pantani's lowest measured haematocrit was, out of interest?

Accordiing to Rendell's book "the death of Marco Pantani", his off season values were around 42-43%, similar to Armstrong's, by the way...