Here's a post on the subject by Benjo Maso, the Dutch cycling historian:
http://groups.google.com/
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> > In his first years as a professional Eddy took anything he could
get, as he did in the Tour > > of '69. But after "the cannibal' had won
everything he wasn't so hungry anymore. For > > instance, in '70
he sold the green jersey to Godefroot. So I don't think he would ripped
the > > polka dot jersey from Virenque. He would have been satisfied
with some euro's.
> > Benjo Maso
> Why is Coppi and Bartoli greater then Merckx according to some? Got
just a minute for your > opinion? I've never heard it from you.
I have heard three are two different reasons why Coppi was greater (I don't think many people think that Bartali is surpassing Merckx):
1) According to Geminiani Coppi was the greatest, because he had to compete with greater riders than Merckx: Poulidor, Zoetemelk and even Gimondi coudnt compare to Bartali, Koblet, Bobet, Kübler and Magni. True, but not very convincing. One could also argue that Merckx was so strong that he dwarfed his rivals.
2) Jacques Goddet said once: Merckx is the best rider ever, but Coppi was better. According to him Coppi was the greatest talent ever and only athlete he had ever known who seemed to be made for the bicycle. Although Merckx won twice as much as Coppi, Coppi's victories were - again according to Goddet - pure works of art, never equalled, not even by Merckx.
3) The italian sport historian Gian Paolo Ormezzano wrote: Merckx was the strongest, but Coppi the greatest. The opinions of Ormezzano and Goddet are IMO only comprehensible if we accept that sport can be much more than just being the fastest or the strongest and is also an important cultural phenomenon. It can go for any sport of course, but never more than for bicycle racing on the road in general and the Tour of the Giro in particular. Or rather, in the 1940's and 1950's and before when legends and myth were much stronger than reality. The main reason was of course that before the introduction of television the public could see two seconds at most and the journalists who followed the race only some fragments. Because of that, a report of a race was almost literature: half fact, half fiction. And of course much more sensational, stirring, moving, touching, dramatic, etc. than prosaic reality. For instance, when Coppi made a breakaway of 100 km or more - as in the Giro of 1949 - a writer as Dino Buzzatti could give it epic, homeric proportions. But that's impossible when everybody has seen the race on television. When Merckx rode two hours alone in front, perhaps viewers thought it was admirable, but they certainly found it very dull. In the television era races racing needs monumental collapses, spectacular falls, come-backs after being shot or having suffered from cancer to get some of the same dramatic force which came almost natural in the area of Coppi and Bartali.
Benjo Maso ------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjo Maso's excellent book on the history of the Tour and its coverage in the media is available in English translation:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/
Mordecai Silver
New York, NY