Thoughts of the "first" American Winner

I saw the "FEARLESS" episode about Greg LeMond on OLN (soon to change it's name to "VERSUS") last night. He was an amazing cyclist but I came away with a few thoughts. He states that in 1991 he was the strongest he's EVER been going to the tour but the Peloton was "different" as the speeds were amazing and that he blames doping for his losing.

1. He says "training is training and they weren't doing anything different than I had all my life."
- except Greg, maybe they weren't eating Ice cream all winter and came into the season fit...unlike your typical yearly routine.

2. He also says his Mitochondria-whatever disease wouldn't have allowed him to win anyway - Then why blame the doping?

3. Greg says the outrageous speed was the result of doping and therefore by default (since he didn't dope) he was bound to lose
- But the problem with that is that until Dave Z last year, Greg had the FASTEST ever TT average speed in the Tour History. I mean, that was in 1989 and lasted until 2005. That's 16 yrs and shouldn't we be saying that he was doped for posting that speed?

The whole thing just ended with a bad taste in my mouth as Greg leaves with the comments "I could have dominated cycling - But I wasn't given the opportunity". How sad as I think he DID dominate and he made the most of the opportunities he was given.

Landis Wins 2006 Tour

Oddly I didn't blog at all about this years tour and yet there is just so much to write about. Highlights are:

*Floyd Landis declares he will need hip replacement surgery after the tour.
*Levi flops in the TT and winds up 5mins back of Floyd.
*Floyd takes the lead through the Perynees while looking very strong.
*Floyd allows Oscar Pereiro to take the lead after being 30min's on GC.
*Floyd looks super strong up L'Alpe D'Huez and puts more time on Menchov, Evans and Sastre and takes the lead over Oscar.
*Floyd detonates on the climb to La Toussuire and is 8:08 behind Oscar and hiding in 11th place. Floyd doesn't make excuses but says the battle is not over, although winning the tour is most likely not going to happen.
*Floyd writes himself into tour Lore by scorching the field and riding on his own over 5 mountain passes and solo for 130k. Floyd ends up 3rd and 30 secs out of first place.
*Floyd get's 3rd on the final TT and has a lead of 59 sec.
*Floyd wins the tour

I was glad to see Oscar stay in 2nd place. Which means it all worked out for Floyd letting him go up the road and it all went wrong for T-Mobile and CSC for allowing Phonak to dictate the race and for just letting Oscar go up the road. I mean, TMob and CSC could have chased, but we saw in the stage #17 to Morzine that given the role to chase, they don't do so good (but then they were chasing Uber-Floyd).

2006 Tour de France Links

I've been watching the Tour at nights at home (thanks for Tivo) and listening to audio and viewing videos while at work. I thought I'd list out my sources for those of your that might not have found these. Enjoy.

Let's start with a good visual of all things cycling:
Daily Distractions from PEZ Cyclingnews

Audio - LIVE tour coverage from Eurosport
www.eurosport.com

VIDEOS of the Tour and behind the scenes:
Velonews
Cyclingnews diary - Levi Leipheimer
OLN-TV Daily Videos
Eurosport Videos

Cycling sites that give live text updates:
Cyclingnews.com
Eurosport live!
Official site of Le Tour de France 2006
The Daily Peloton TDF site

Look at my cycling sidebar for more good links. A few highlights are:
The Paceline - Discovery teams site
ProCycling Magazine
Graham Watson
Cycling Post
Bici Race - Italian based site with a US bias

Enjoy and I'll be posting on the tour soon.