Originally Posted by Maelochs

yeah ... unmmm ... No, sorry, you are totally wrong.

People can do grands tours on bread and water ... just not so fast. Maybe people have always cheated, but that is what that means---they have always cheated.

I'd prefer shorter stages, more rest days, or longer ride times to riders using drugs.

And yeah, LA rode those stages, and worked hard ... that was never the issue and you trying to make it the issue shows you don't like to deal with the Real reality.

No one knows if his tactics were better because tactics are dictated by performance ability. If he had better drugs, could push harder or recover faster, his tactics worked. the best tactics in the world won't beat a stronger rider using the same or similar tactics. And there is no way of knowing what his competition might have done, and they also been on the Dr. Ferrari plan.

Also, LA's team mates were also on the plan, which meant that he could get more out of his team than most other team leaders.

Everyone who finished those tours worked really hard and took a lot of risks and went all-out. The domestiques we don't remember who set a killer pace for the first third or half of a stage maybe worked harder each day for less reward than the team leaders. But we only remember the "heroes" like we remember the quarterbacks and running backs who would have been crushed if not for the linemen how got beat bloody on every play.

LA cheated his butt off ... and as I said above, i wish it had been a level playing field. Thing is, by all signs his team cheated the best, so it is impossible to know how much of the crap for which you are praising him, was only possible because he and his whole teams had the best drugs.

The guy who came in second might have done exactly everything LA did in terms of effort, risk, tactics, ... but hs team and himself had a less perfectly tailored drug-delivery program, so fatigue might have dragged each of them back by five percent compered to LA's team, and there is your difference.

Kissing up to LA's memory won;'t get you anywhere. Do it if you like, but the guy was a great cyclist ... but if he were not the best cheater on the best team of cheaters we might not recall his name any more than we recall who finished third in 2002.