Thursday, February 17, 2005

Tour de Lance pt 7

Lance Armstrong has decided to race again in the Tour. Though, I'm not really sure why. Not like he needs the money, or the abusive allegations of drug use and doping, nor the abusive french spectators.

I'm certain this year you'll be hearing even more screams about how he must be using something to enhance performance. Even though he's come up clean every year that they test, which is more than can be said for the other winners that have ridden during the newest drug testing years. Jan Ulrich suddenly dropped out one year, and the rumor was that it was because he was obviously not going to pass any of the tests.

I have an argument with some former co-workers about whether Lance marks up with the other racers with large win numbers. Most of their arguments have to do with Lance not racing and winning races in Europe before and after the tour. Most of the Big winners, like Merckx, Indurain, etc. all raced and won in multiple big races. My argument is that the difference is that Lance is racing many racers that are racing less and concentrating on the tour just as he does. So in full context, Lance is racing in the style of his time as Merckx or Indurain did.

It should be an interesting race in any case.

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