RE: If lance rode clean how many tours would he have one if any?

Make up some numbers, why not?

Justin91 wrote:

1. The whole field was doping when Lance was doping.

2. Lance had tremendous early success. He was an endurance prodigy in triathlon and national champ for two years.

3. Lance won the UCI Road World championship and one of the classics.

4. Stage racing favors a different and lighter body type. Lance had that when he won the tours. He did not when he had trouble finishing them.

Was Lance doping? Yes. Was he one of the most genetically gifted cyclists of all time? Yes.

1. How in hell do you know the entire field was doping when Lance was doping back in the mid 90's?

4. So he got a lighter body BUT without reduced strength. That really is the amazing part. You're right about lighter body in climbing but you don't seem to recognise the strength that's required in this sport and in that particular contest.

2. and 3. if he'd doped back then while not as many riders were doping, it's not unusual to have that kind of early success. The problem is that he seemed to find that his then lighter doping wasn't enough to get him good enough results. So he doped even more, to an unprecedented extent.

I don't see his talent in winning any of the TdF stage.

Denying Lance's ability to win a Tour clean is similar to those denying that Lance used epo.

We must suspect that doping was systemic on the other teams too.

1, 2, and 3. These responses all rest on the incredibly naive premiss that cycling was generally clean. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you ... in Fantasyland.

4. Lance did lose strength. He was no longer an effective single-day racer after cancer.

That's why I quoted his win the UCI World Road Championship and one of the Classics.

Your

Lance did lose strength. He was no longer an effective single-day racer after cancer.

To be fair, he wasn't even a particularly effective single-day racer BEFORE the cancer. Let's be realistic, he was good, but he wasn't THAT good.

That's why I quoted his win the UCI World Road Championship and one of the Classics.

This may be overstating the case to claim these races as "proof" that Armstrong was a nascent talent - the UCI World Road Race Championships were held in pouring rain, and Lance joined an escape that was never seriously chased down - a measure of how little the other riders considered him a threat. And La Fleche-Wallonne is hardly one of the premier classics.

Not that I'm trying to take anything away from Armstrong, he won those races and there is no evidence that he was doping at the time, but he wasn't setting the world alight in the same way as he was doing 8 - 10 years later.

I've always felt that this "everyone was doing drugs, so Lance is still the best" argument to be wholly specious. Stepping away from cycling performance and into the world of cancer treatment, it is a well-known fact that EVERYBODY reacts differently to certain treatment protocols - that's why they continue to develop new drugs. Two people with the exact same cancer, in the exact same organ, will react completely differently to the same drug, and this phenomenon is not restricted to cancer treatments, people get differing levels of benefit from simple drugs like Nyquil.

It is perfectly reasonable to suspect that Armstrong might be one of the people who respond particularly well to certain types of drugs.

One thing that has been revealed by the USADA investigation is that Armstrong had the means and opportunity to experiment with a wide range of different PEDs and sophisticated regimes - he wasn't just given a few vials of EPO and if it worked it worked, if not "tough luck,kid".