Bekele ?
Bekele ?
Funny, I was just thinking about him yesterday. I was watching an interview with Meyers, Durden & Tabb. They were talking about the new shoes that propel you. It made me think. Mercyx set the Hour record. Years later, because of technology it got blown away. The federation came in & said that all future records for the hour had to be made on bikes with Mercyx era technology. It does show that a governing body can dictate what materials are used!
Haile
Someone doped to the gills and then some.
Dean Karnazes
shshshs wrote:
Someone doped to the gills and then some.
Not really. In the days of Eddy Merckx doping consisted of amphetamines and stimulants. Those aren’t exactly drugs that are going to help distance runners a great deal and are, in fact, quite dangerous. The British cyclist Tommy Simpson, a guy from the Merckx era, died during the Tour de France while climbing Mount Ventoux because of a heart attack caused by amphetamines.
The drugs and techniques that the cyclists are using now, and that guys like Lance Armstrong, Jan Ullrich, Miguel Indurain, and all of those guys, make what Merckx did look like child’s play.
I would be tempted to say that Pre was similar to Merckx but I think a better comparison to Pre would be The Badger, Bernard Hinault.
Merckx did 1800 races over his entire career and won 525 of them (~30%).
That includes 5x Tour de France, 5x Giro d'Italia, 1x Vuelta, 19 Monuments and 3x World Champion.
Those 33 victories alone are imho equivalent to an olympic medal, so good luck finding a runner that can come close to that...
That being said, I'd go for Ron Clarke or Zatopek for their sheer will to race anyone, anywhere at all times, just like Merckx.