Re: [CR]RE: USPS best team ever?

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Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 14:36:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Stephan Andranian" <sandranian@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [CR]RE: USPS best team ever?
To: marc garcia <marcgarcia80@ameritech.net>, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
In-Reply-To: <20050701203835.80860.qmail@web81302.mail.yahoo.com>


I would agree that Lance Armstrong is the best Tour de France rider ever. You can't really argue with 6 or 7 wins in a row.

But best Tour "Team"? I would argue that the fact that a team did it with one guy really speaks more to his superiority than to the team's greatness, although granted (stop yelling and shaking heads at me) it is a team sport and Lance doesn't do it on his own.

However, consider this: The "Renaults" did it with 3 different riders. And in 1983 & 1984 they had both the Yellow and White jersey (granted in 1983 it was the same person). In addition, in 1984, the Renaults took 1st, 3rd, and the teams competition. Doing it with one guy, i.e. Merckx, is impressive. But cobbling together a team with 3 winners (and they found LeMond as well), is even more so. I guess we will have to see if Popyvich is any good in a few years....

The Renaults have a record USPS/Discovery cannot match. If someone knows of a website that has stage finishes listed, I would look at that too, and bet that the Renaults have more stage wins than USPS.

Stephan Andranian Costa Mesa, CA

marc garcia <marcgarcia80@ameritech.net> wrote: I agree that the USPS/Discovery team is not the best ever but I think that they can be called the best tour team of all time. It is one thing to have 7 tour wins, in my mind it is another to have 7 tour wins in a row. Let's be honest, at least in this country to the general population the tour de france is the only bike race in existence and this team reflects that, this team was put together to win this one race. You have to give them extra points for dominating year in and year out. It is comparable to Michael Jordan's bulls, once they finally made it to the finals the first year, every year after that you knew who was going to win and the only way anyone else could win was if MJ wasn't there on his own accord.

I know the argument has been made that the field during Lance's period has not been as strong as previous eras but did Merckx have to deal with competitors blood doping? If Lance is clean, and has been clean during his run, his ability to defeat chemically enhanced riders is even more impressive.

Is this the CR list or sports radio? actually it has to be the CR list, most sports radio hosts don't even consider cycling a sport. To hell with them.

marc garcia chicago IL _______________________________________________

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