Coppi was mentally too weak to equal Merckx, though. He did win with impressive margins etc, and was definitely the better climber and perhaps even time trialist. Though Merckx was mostly Merckx because of his mindset, and there he was superious, definitely to a Coppi.
Same goes for Ocana. He was stronger/equally strong as Merckx one year in the Tour, but Merckx forced him downhill and he fell down. He was in the lead so he could've won that Tour against Merckx.
All the later fights, however, he was just a shadow of his former self. So he was really strong for maybe 1 or 2 seasons.
The comparision to Coppi is always unfair on Fausto to me. We never got to see a full career from Fausto due to WWII which was a shame (obviously) because he could have set up enough of a palmares to challenge for the best ever title. But he didn't so you've still got to give it to Merckx in the end, but Coppi definately slots in a #2/3 for many including myself. Just would have been great to see him race full-time because he would have set serious records even Merckx wouldn't have been able to beat.
Ocana on the other hand was a flash. Really good for a couple of seasons then crashed hard and never came back after that. There were always challengers to Merckx but they came and went in much the same was as Ocana, just roundly beaten and then mostly forgotten. He was a better climber though which as pointed out brings it back around to that Merckx was the best all-rounder and overall cyclist, but in individual disciplines we has only the best rouler/puncher
Merckx was mentally very strong, so was Hinault and Armstrong (his drugs aren't part of the argument), but you don't have to be so to be a champion, Anquetil wasn't, on stage 14 of one tour (the one with the Puy-de-Dome. He was predicted to die and it really influenced his performance, but you have to admit, Coppi's brother died, that would have badly hurt anybody mentally. In my opinion Fausto was better at cycling, but not better as a complete cyclist if you get my meaning.
Ocaña wasn't beaten by Merckx, he was descending behind him, Merckx crashed and Ocaña ran into him, which wasn't either of there fault, but Zoetlemelk (and Agostinho) ran into Ocaña, just bad luck really. Although he was alright after the crash, the next year he was hit by sickness (bronchitis??) and he won the race in the year after, I personally believe that he just lost motivation after that, he really lived in the extremes, he was either in amazing form or terrible and without motivation it was just usually bad (but maybe it was another reason),
Also about Ocaña, I read that his first pro win was the Spanish National Champs, his family had been refugees of Spain and when he brought the jersey to his dying father, his father was furious with him, because he hated Spain.
hanspetter61 wrote:
In my opinion would Lance win if all where clean to. .
I not sure for that. No one can..
Every person reacting differently for drugs..does every rider got best way of doping himself?
Lance became top notch time trialist and climber with few years..from more like spring classic type rider.
Same time Ullrich has been top class where ever he raced with bike..what ever age.
Main point..we never will find out..who had been best when the sport would have clean.
hanspetter61 wrote:
In my opinion would Lance win if all where clean to. .
I not sure for that. No one can..
Every person reacting differently for drugs..does every rider got best way of doping himself?
Lance became top notch time trialist and climber with few years..from more like spring classic type rider.
Same time Ullrich has been top class where ever he raced with bike..what ever age.
Main point..we never will find out..who had been best when the sport would have clean.
Chevalier of Moulins (his first name is forgotten), instead of doping he caught a train.
hanspetter61 wrote: Armstrong is the only one who is stripped of all results even if others also have used drugs most likly in all career. The NeXT of the list in his 7 wins in TDF is 1999: Alex Zülle
The list is long. U will hardly find one rider among the 10 best from this years that hasnt been a part of drugs. Cadel Evans is maybe the only one.
My point that Armstrong is the one With so hard penalty. No other rider has admitted something either before they had to. I dont think what Armstrong did was good. But i think he is punisched lot harder than anybody else. Who is talking about Pantani, he is like a god.
Thats not entirely true, he was stripped of results from mid 1998 to 2011. He still has his Worlds title, Flèche Wallone, U.S Champs, 2 TDF stages. The only reason he lost all his Tour GC wins was because he fought the charges laid against him, pretty sure he had the chance to keep 2 of them but being the knob that he is then yeah he lost them. The rest you listed should of all been stripped but you can blame the countries federations that refused and still refuse to investigate and sanction, doesn't mean Armstrong's ban was to much but means that the others haven't been punished enough or at all.
I agree with you on Pantani but I think the difference is he is Italian (the tifosi don't seem to care to much about doping) and his tragic death also leads to sympathy, I personally rate him as beautiful to watch climb but still a dirty cheat and was kind of like watching WWC wrestling, as in impressive but fake.
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I'm going through this wiki page and I found something hilarious:
wikipedia wrote:
Testers arrived at the Tour de France for the first time in 1966, in Bordeaux, although only after word had spread and many riders had left their hotels. The first competitor they found was Raymond Poulidor, who became the first rider to be tested in the Tour.
It must be the only time in his career Poulidor was first at the Tour!
I'm going through this wiki page and I found something hilarious:
wikipedia wrote:
Testers arrived at the Tour de France for the first time in 1966, in Bordeaux, although only after word had spread and many riders had left their hotels. The first competitor they found was Raymond Poulidor, who became the first rider to be tested in the Tour.
It must be the only time in his career Poulidor was first at the Tour!
hanspetter61 wrote: Armstrong is the only one who is stripped of all results even if others also have used drugs most likly in all career. The NeXT of the list in his 7 wins in TDF is 1999: Alex Zülle
The list is long. U will hardly find one rider among the 10 best from this years that hasnt been a part of drugs. Cadel Evans is maybe the only one.
My point that Armstrong is the one With so hard penalty. No other rider has admitted something either before they had to. I dont think what Armstrong did was good. But i think he is punisched lot harder than anybody else. Who is talking about Pantani, he is like a god.
Thats not entirely true, he was stripped of results from mid 1998 to 2011. He still has his Worlds title, Flèche Wallone, U.S Champs, 2 TDF stages. The only reason he lost all his Tour GC wins was because he fought the charges laid against him, pretty sure he had the chance to keep 2 of them but being the knob that he is then yeah he lost them. The rest you listed should of all been stripped but you can blame the countries federations that refused and still refuse to investigate and sanction, doesn't mean Armstrong's ban was to much but means that the others haven't been punished enough or at all.
I agree with you on Pantani but I think the difference is he is Italian (the tifosi don't seem to care to much about doping) and his tragic death also leads to sympathy, I personally rate him as beautiful to watch climb but still a dirty cheat and was kind of like watching WWC wrestling, as in impressive but fake.
Its not the point if he kept results before 1998. Its that he has lost all other results and thats not who has happend to everybody else. In justis u can gain lower sentence if u partisipate but u dont get harder punnishment if u dont. Thats its not a argument for life sentence. Lets use Erik Zabel. When he admit he said that he had used doping for a week but stopped due to side effect. The truths later came up in 2013, he had used doping from 96-2004. including EPO, cortisone, then even blood doping. Why should he and severeal 100 of others who also dennied before they had no chance other than admit. I belive in fair cycling, i belive in fair punichment. Including all also Armstrong.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
