2007 tour de france

[Miamipuck]

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Gila,

I have a man crush on Heras so I'm probably overly biased. Certainly that one tour would have been a lot more interesting had he been on a different team, although again it would have been about the same in the GC because he is so much worse than Lance in the ITT.

I didn't watch back then as I was only 5 but the 1985 La Vie Claire team was amazing. They had Bernard Hinault who won, LeMond finished second, Steve Bauer finished 10th, Niki Ruttimann 13th, Dominique Arnaud 22nd, and a few lower placed finishers. Having your fifth best rider finish the tour 22nd position is pretty amazing not to mention going 1-2 on the podium.

edit: Also, the gap between LeMond and the third place guy was pretty reasonable at 2 minutes, 47 seconds. LeMond said after the tour that he would have won but he sat up on a stage when he was told, a lie apparently, that Hinault was just behind him when he was really a few minutes back. Not sure what to make of it as LeMond has shown himself to be an ass and say whatever would, by his logic, make him look better.

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Believe it or not I have been watching the tour since 1984 the year before the Hinault/Lemond squabble. From what I remember Lemond was asked/told to lay off the gas pedal for Hinault with the explicit promise that Hinault would do the same thing the following year for Lemond. As legend has it Hinault bent Lemond over and Lemond won anyhow. Lemond to this day swears he would have crushed Hinault that year. Their team leader, who blogs for the cycling mags, (I forget his name right now) intimated the same, as does Phil Liggett. Obviously they both tread lightly as to not sully Hinault.

Anyway, why I watched the tour is basically Phil L. imo is one of the top 3 announcers I have ever heard in any sport. The joy/excitement still comes through when he calls a race . I think back then they just showed snippets of the tour in 2 hours montages every Saturday and Sunday on Wide World of Sports or CBS, I forget which.

I think the 2 best climbers I have seen are Armstrong and Pantani. AIRC. It is difficult for me to critique the older riders as I did not see enough of them. A montage of the race really is not enough to make an informed decision. I do know for as great a rider as Indurain was, he was not a spectacular climber on the order of Armstrong/Pantani. To me he did enough with his team to survive the mountains and just lay waste to people in the time trials. He is similar in many respects to Jan Ullrich, before you flame, I mean in style, obviously Indurain is one of the greatest tour champions ever while Ullrich clearly isn't.

I think if you go back in history almost every Tour champion has a great team. Banesto had an awesome team, Hinault had one as did Armstrong. Ullrich for instance had a team that had to attack every race because of Zabel where as Armstrong basically has 0 sprinters and could care less about a rider on his team winning another jersey. I think it makes a difference when the team is committed like that. Largely a lot of the team importance goes unnoticed.

Oh, Heras although a great rider/climber, I do not think he would have ever challenged Armstrong for the GC. I think LA was just too damn strong and Heras value really was as a teammate not a leader. Of course that is just conjecture and opinion.


Edit: Hinault's coach I referrenced earlier was Cyrille Guimard.