clubman 

Maybe he could have been. It's the arrogant baldface lies and deceit that knocked him out of contention.

He was right about it not being about the bike.

jamesdak 

I love each day when I come back from my own ride to see that Cavendish has won again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then I get to read everyone's comments and chuckle.

One more baby, YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ctak

Not entirely true, autologous blood doping has been widely practiced since the 1960s in cycling and track & field, among other sporting events, and is highly effective
https://web.archive.org/web/20171123...1/ISS2401e.pdf

Benefits quite similar to epo:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6614299/

Risks have been declining for decades:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...2003.tb00085.x

repechage

I read that book and less than 1/4 way through concluded he was cheating. Just so so put upon regarding being surprise tested.
yep, now we know why. Scared.

the Coppi / Merckx comparison is tough.
think Bartali also, the War messed with his career as well.

repechage

autologous works but the window for introduction back is finite. The 1984 Olympic USA cycling team went beyond and a number got sick or did not perform due to greed.
family members- and beyond. Stupid.

retrofit

Cav:

“I don’t think I can ever be compared with the great Eddy Merckx, the greatest male road cyclist of all time,” Cavendish said when he took a seat in his post-stage press conference.

canklecat

I haven't watched the videos yet (I always check the news reports first, because I don't care about spoilers or surprises). But that statement sounds like Cavendish and his advisers worked hard on the optimal wording of his statement, probably well in advance of matching the Merckx record.

• Refers to Merckx as "great" twice.
• Male cyclist
• Road cyclist

In this era of nitpicking, fault-finding, naming-blaming-and-shaming for every slight misstep and statement, Cav's quote appears to be bulletproof.

canklecat

Gotta admit, Eddy hasn't lost his charming youthful arrogance.

To be serious tho', I don't read too much into Eddy's tone, even if it does seem a bit ungracious. He's older, probably has chronic pain, and a fairly recent serious concussion. I can confirm from experience -- as a caregiver for three older family members who all had powerful personalities; and being a cranky old dude myself now -- it's not at all unusual for us to lose a bit of our nuances in discussions.

Unlike most celebrities who might be pressured into an explanatory apologetic oopsie comment later, Merckx will probably just shrug it off, with one of those "I'm Eddy Merckx, dammit" grins.

canklecat

TBH, you're not wrong. In an era when it was "Dope or lose the race and your job," which necessitated being the best doper in the game, including buying off the officials, labs, etc., while also working your butt completely off in training, and having the kind of single minded determination and arrogance needed to dominate a game that's complex beyond anything most of us have ever experienced... yup, I can't disagree.

I would only correct that statement to read "...the greatest Tour de France winner ever." To emphasize the unique properties, qualities, quirks and outrageous flaws of the TdF that tended to dictate who the participants would be and how they would behave. It's more of a carnival freak show on wheels than anything else. And, yeah, nobody was a better carny than Lance.

canklecat

I haven't watched the videos or post-mortems yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if some riders took a dive. This is pro cycling after all. There's a long history of payoffs, bribes, and behind the scenes deals to reward competitors for easing off the gas just a little at strategic moments. Recall the rumors that Anquetil "sold" the 1959 Tour de France through some sort of sweetheart deal, a shock after having dominated the '57 TdF. Anquetil had a notoriously mercenary attitude toward professional cycling and did what he wanted to do and whatever was best for his bank account. And when it was in his best interest to go for the win again, he did so.

I wish I'd known about the game theory of cycle racing when I was in my youth in the mid 1970s racing a few crits. At the time I thought "Just be the fastest and strongest." I had no background in cycling, no coaching, no idea about strategy and tactics. My background was amateur boxing and I had loved boxing since I was a kid. While I knew professional boxing was often rigged, in my experience the amateurs were generally free of that (with a few exceptions) and in general the best fighter won. Bike racing -- other than time trials -- is nothing like that.

Later I found a book on playing cutthroat Monopoly, which revealed that the famous board game wasn't intended to be a mere game of chance based on luck of the dice. It was intended to demonstrate the ruthlessness of monopolistic business practices, and how under the table sweetheart deals cut out naive competitors. There's nothing in the rules of Monopoly that prohibit, for example, selling and trading with other players, developing ad hoc partnerships to undercut other players, etc.

If I'd read that book earlier I would have had a better understanding of pro cycling when I was a kid, and later when I tried racing but couldn't grasp the complexities of fluid partnerships.

canklecat

Yup. Amphetamines alone, booze, etc., could not possibly accomplish over the grueling course of a 3 week grand tour what could later be accomplished with EPO, testosterone and HGH. If anything using too much speed literally kills -- Tom Simpson, for example.

Anquetil doped, unapologetically, mostly occasionally taking speed. Merckx was known to use amphetamines, but couldn't possibly have relied on that for a grand tour or season. I wouldn't be surprised if he used one of the commonly available nasal inhalers that contained amphetamines. Just before the start of his 1972 one-hour record attempt, he could be seen inhaling something from a tube or small jar, and rubbing some inside his nose. I'm old enough to remember when those over-the-counter inhalers contained speed, and they did deliver quite a jolt. Not quite like swallowing orally administered benzies, but a potent, quick acting jolt akin to mainlining a pot of coffee.

With the exception of an arguable technicality: If I'm reading Floyd Landis's statements over the years correctly, blood doping was the real game changer. While EPO, testosterone and HGH were significant, Floyd attributes his superhuman comeback from the stage 16 collapse during the 2006 TdF, to dominate the mountain stage 17, to blood doping. He's still not sure how the tests found abnormal testosterone influences, unless the stored blood was from a training session before the TdF in which he had used a testosterone patch.

I've been interested in the whole sports doping thing for years because it also affects my favorite sport, boxing. Between confessions from former pro boxers, a few guys like Landis, Tyler Hamilton and a few others, it appears that most of them were occasionally micro-dosing EPO *during* races, but as testing became more sophisticated they tended to avoid using EPO and testosterone *during* races. Instead most of them favored blood doping, which was more difficult to detect as long as it didn't significantly impact their baseline labs.

According to some former boxers, cyclists and other athletes, it's during *training* that they used heavier doses of EPO, testosterone and HGH. The goal was to use doping to enable them to work out at superhuman levels without the body breaking down. Some have said that testosterone in particular enabled incredibly fast recovery from hard workouts.

But it also caused bloating from water retention -- hence the telltale moon face and apparent flabbiness that masked the underlying hard muscle. I've seen that in videos and still photos of elite boxers in training, just a few weeks before the title bouts. Yet by fight time they're lean and mean, having tapered off the drugs. To many casual observers they just see a "fat" boxer, and some boxers are notoriously undisciplined in their diets, eating and drinking themselves way beyond their optimal weight class. So it's difficult at a glance to tell the difference. But an undisciplined boxer who's just fat from overeating and drinking cannot regain optimal fitness in just 6-8 weeks, while puffiness from doping *can* be shed quickly without compromising optimal fitness.

Nitpicking, I know, because for years I thought that, for example, Landis had knowingly used testosterone after the stage 16 collapse. There's no reason now for him to lie, so I'll take his word for it that it was a re-infusion of his own blood, which might have come from a batch taken during training when he did wear a testosterone patch.

canklecat

As usual, YouTuber Lanterne Rouge clarifies the action, step by step. I don't see any indication that anyone "let" Cavendish win the 13th stage final sprint to equal the 34 stages record by Merckx.

I don't know who the young fellow is behind the Lanterne Rouge channel, but he's very, very good. Good enough to recently get some sponsored gigs as an analyst/commentator. He talks very quickly but I've been watching his videos for a year or two, so I'm accustomed to following his rapid-fire observations. And it helps that we can rewind easily on YouTube.

It appears that Cav was aided by a decimation of the top sprinters due to injury (Bennett before the tour began, Sagan later, etc.), the usual attrition as the grueling tour takes its toll on sprinters who lack Cav's support team. And, of course, Cav's experience and instinct for reading the flow in the finish and seizing opportunities.

Perhaps to cyclists like Merckx who have won a variety of stages in all conditions, Cavendish's stage wins *seem* a bit less impressive. But I'm not sure it's fair or accurate to denigrate the difficulty of the relatively flatter stages in which a bunch sprint determines the winner. It's a different kind of challenge, not a lesser challenge. It seems to demand a trained mind that operates as quickly as their legs and bikes, to read and seize opportunities in a split second. To a cyclist with better stamina than Cavendish, better strength over the long haul in the mountains and mixed terrain, they may *feel* like they're suffering more. But would they take the same chances to win a hectic bunch sprint, risking serious injury and suffering for *weeks and months* in recovery from injuries?

Does that seem like a better bargain than suffering in the mountains for hours, while avoiding, as much as possible, the agony of debilitating injuries from crashes? If I'm recalling correctly, didn't Lance Armstrong once say that he avoided bunch sprints for that very reason? He was in it for the overall win, not to risk having to abandon over high-risk, low reward sprints? Maybe I'm misremembering and someone else said that.

Anyway, I can relate. I've dropped out of some group rides and never returned to riding with some groups because of the high risk/zero reward behaviors. There's nothing to "win" by following a "training" ride in a heedless dash through a red light, or darting around traffic cones and road hazards that people ahead failed to call out.


And another take from Chris Horner:

SteelyMan

Exactly. How many Tour De France Wins, not stage wins, does Cavendish have?

jamesdak 

Still not sure why so many are upset by the Media's take on this. The Media has been full of crap on everything for years now. They are "selling a story" not giving you facts anymore. You don't really put much into anything you get from media anymore do you?

iab

Why is Cav straddling a penis?

clubman 

Because he can?

iab

Works for me!

seant666

Doesn't bug me, what Cav has done is amazing but like you say he is a sprinter and EM was everything. It's just the one record Cav has equalled, which is some feat, and if you look at EM's career record, it is without equal.

viffer

Sure, Canvendish can’t hold a candle to the Cannibal’s accomplishments and that’ll still be true after he breaks the record. Everyone knows that. But like you said it’s a different world. It still bugs me that pro riders routinely throw out $20k bikes during the race like they get them for free and just grab another from the team car to continue the race. They should be required to go to the local black smith and hammer out any repairs on their own and eat whatever blueberries they can find by the side of the road, no support, no team sponsors, no help at all like the rest of us plebes riding our bikes everyday.

hevysrf

I don't think what the commentators say matters, the real question is "Were you the only person in your high school who knew who Eddy Merckx was?"

pachyderm56

I have been following cycling for the last 45 years and it does not bother me in the least. Professional cycling, like any sport really, changes over time. Funny the media simply makes the statement that Cavendish is going to break Merckx's single day tour victories. It is the listener / viewer that takes the leap they are making a broader comparison. There has been a movement of specialization in pro cycling that makes comparisons to past generations foolish at best. I have been reading a book about the 1919 tour, those guys were beasts. Stages that were in excess of 250 miles on roads that were torn up from WWI. Stories of riders that would break their frame and it was their responsibility to repair it without assistance, patching their own tires and sewing them back up, no assistance, no team cars, no radios with the director commanding / coordination the team. I was never a fan of Armstrong and it was due in part because of specialization. He essentially trained for one race and one race only ; The Tour. He even committed to helping a team mate win the Vuelta then backed out. He had one of the strongest teams in the history of cycling, yeah he should have won. Anyway, it is just a record, Cavendish himself has tried to downplay the media static. So he breaks one of the several records Merckx holds.

seant666

ultrabuzzard

No, it doesn’t bug me at all. Nobody is saying that Cavendish is a better cyclist than Merckx. But in the age of specialization, there is nobody who can accelerate off a good lead out better than Mark Cavendish. I thought Eddy was in poor form in how he responded to the record potentially being tied (it now has been tied) and broken. A classier response would have been to congratulate the “newcomer” on sharing the stage win title. Sure, Eddy wasn’t necessarily focused on stage wins. The sport is much different now than when he rode. Eddy could do it all…win stages, win grand tours, sprint and climb. Cavendish only does one of those particularly well but he has done it better than anyone else in the business since the sprints became popular. The green jersey wasn’t even created until 1953, and Merckx certainly wasn’t focused on that. If he had, who knows how many he could have won? But he didn’t, and this is the result. He needs to get over it and be happy for Cav.

ClydeClydeson

Not a bother. This is the case with every sport where a standout athlete has a chance to break a record. If Connor McDavid get close to Gretzky's season points per game record, they will talk about it non-stop every time he is on the ice, and when he gets within a handful of goals, fans will start holding up signs referencing the record. People will brag for decades about the game they saw where the record was broken. it doesn't mean Gretzky didn't dominate in many other categories for years, and it doesn't mean that McDavid will hold the record forever, nor does it mean Gretzky will cease to be a god among hockey fans. This is the nature of elite sports.

BikeOnForever

HOW do you watch the TDF??? I've spent hours trying to find a way to watch it live, but hit roadblocks everywhere. Eurosport says 'not available in your area', etc. etc. Appreciate a PM or a general description of how you can watch it live, preferable in high def on a TV. I'm in New Jersey. THANKS!