LeMond: Why Are Some Dopers Hero's & Others Villains? 

First of all, Greg Lemond was the first American rider I ever watched racing back in the 80s when he won the time trial against Laurent Fignon in 1989 to win the Tour De France. I immediately became a fan of his for showing the world that Americans could do the grand tours and win. Back then, when Greg was racing, we had crappy recaps/highlights only to watch on CBS so I didn't actually get to watch the TDF like we can today. Second, I find it refreshing that Greg is honest about difficult it was to say no during the age of doping when one is young and eager to live their dream of racing on a road bike in Europe. Thank you for the great interview.

I was a big cycling fan and really followed the TDF. I heard the people questioning Lance and his team and their "Freshness" in the steep mountain climbs. And then when Floyd Landis got "Busted" ,and spoke out it was Heartbreaking.to hear. Love Greg Lomond and his honesty.

nice shout out to Graham Obree!

Loving the Greg Lemond content roadman. It'd be great if you could get him on a few times a year.

I worked in a bike shop during high school and raced with our club. Greg was a hero. I watched Armstrong's unnatural performances and told people their new "Great American Hero Lance" wasn't on the level. My coworkers were sudden fans of bike racing and were not happy to hear my opinions. It cost me more than you might imagine.

It's incorrect to say, "exact same behavior". Lance, a sociopath, destroyed people, teammates and careers. Pantani only destroyed himself. Ullrich was also a tragic character. Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, and many like them... they didn't destroy people. Lemond and Hinault may be the only true cycling heroes.

Lance was Demonized because He attacked people who rightfully accused him of Doping. He tried to intimidate them into backing off and dug deeper into his lies.

Interesting how he went from not answering the question straight to patting his own back for not doping when he had the chance to do it. You gotta love those interviews

So much fun watching LeMond. Don't say this much. Thanks youtube algorithm

Why is Greg wearing horns in this video?

ask greg in 1989 in the tour of italy he was gonn quit. then he said he took a b12 shot then had a great time trial and won the tour. Greg you took something

LeMond mentions he was immensely talented and winning pro-am races at 18. Lance Armstrong was beating professional triathletes at age 16. I'm not a fan of Lance, and I'm not excusing him, but to say Lance Armstrong was /not/ talented is simply incorrect. His record as a teen in triathlon, and as a junior was amazing - he clearly had lots of innate talent. VO₂Max does not correlate perfectly with aerobic performance. This is still something of a mystery to sports physiologists. But it's quite possible to have 2 athletes, one of 85 ml/kg and another of 75, where the VO₂Max in theory says the former should beat the pants off the latter, yet the latter beats the former. Yes, all else being equal, the 85 ml/kg athlete wins, but it's /not/ a perfect relationship, and there *are* other factors (not well understood) that can turn this upside down. As another example, an elite cyclists VO₂Max will be at its peak somewhere in their very early twenties. Yet, this likely is _not_ the peak of their cycling performance ability. The same athlete will very likely be /stronger/ as an endurance cyclist around 25 to 28 - even though their VO₂Max will already have declined slightly. So LeMond's argument is not sound here.

I find these podcasts brilliant and thought provoking. With regards to armstrong pre Internet and pre his cancer I was made aware of certain things that had happened the other side of the pond by a acquaintance who had a contact fairly high up in a certain team. I still think that if armstrong was a neo pro now he would be something in the mvdp category----as in maybe not to to be able to crest the hc climbs in the front groups but certainly be very competitive in most of the classics and go for medium mountain stages in grand tours----the guy was clearly v.talented athletically.

Wonder if Greg remembers staying at the Vail Doubletree Inn in 1986, representing (with Hinault, Bauer, JF Barnard, etc) the "Celestial Seasons" team, at the Coors International Cycling Classic, and enjoying the "Angel Hair Pasta with Chicken & Shrimp" dinner, then going out the next morning onto the "Vail Pass Hill Climb" Time Trial? Because I recommended that plate, as Guest Services Director, to Mike ~ the Manager who drove their Luggage truck and arrived first; Mike ordered 16 plates of my favorite dinner at the (then) Café Colorado... 🎉🎉🎉

Always have to remember PED's don't make you 50% better, 5% better recovery & performance is enough to really benefit in a 3 week long race.

Just amazes me that anyone can 'understand' or partially justify the use of drugs in sport because someone else has a 'natural' advantage ....the whole point of competition is knowing someone might naturally have an advantage but do you have the drive and discipline to offset your natural disadvantage to better their overall performance? If you can, then you are achieving brilliance on a superior level! The integrity of Greg is one of a dying breed ....he's a TRUE sportsman

Love the Graeme Obree shout out!

Regarding Armstrong: He has a bad personality, period. To this day, he is narcissistic. I think that is one of the reasons why he gains as much hate as he does. As far as talent, I think he had as much or more than all the other dopers in the peloton that were winning. Which in a sense made him a great talent in comparing him in that context. He was the best of the dopers and the dopers were winning.

The plural of hero is heroes. Hero's is the possessive form of hero. Why do some people use apostrophes for plural form of nouns? Can you explain?

Of course Greg was doping. For me what makes him now worse than Lance is that Greg continues to question modern cycling. All because he acts like a saint.

Knowing someone who raced professionally, he described the shower of wrappers that appeared in the early part of a race. They were not for KitKat's

As a casual watcher of cycling at some point I came to the conclusion that not only are the participants cheating but the administrators are also former cheats. So I don't watch cycling anymore.

great insight from Lemond during the whole video, and I specially loved what he mentions by the end of the video. Could it be that while Armstrong was mediocre, he paid more to have a more advanced doping than other riders, and this gave him an extra advantage even if other riders were also doped?

I don’t hate Lance because he doped, I hate Lance because he was a bully. They all doped, or maybe a few didn’t, but certainly enough that it was the majority

Christophe Bassons.

Why heroes & vilains ? In one word...marketing, how much is the individual worth to the governing body and its image/value. Probably the clearest example of this is the Ben Johnson/Carl Lewis clash in Seoul in "88. The look of surprise on Lewis' face (wow, how did he get better drugs than me) was funny to see. But the question of why Johnson was caught/punished and not Lewis...look at the marketability of the both of them. The stuff that Johnson was tested positive for is in no way performance enhancing, serving primarily to massively bulk up (along with heavy weight training) long before a competitive events. His entourage would have known that and it begs the question of why it was in his system post-race. Lewis though, always tested clean but then, so did many others who were later outed (Marion Jones) . It was disturbing how Johnson was crucified in a very public inquiry and then stripped of all previous accomplishment, even though he had tested clean. Besides Lance, nobody else has been the subject of so much public humiliation, especially as it is still commonly acknowledge that doping is still rampant in many sports, nothing resolved. Lance was seen as the UCI's means of expanding into the American sports/media market by creating a hero/superstar, and therefore had to be "kept clean" as his successes increased. He only raced the premier event, the Tour, spending all his time pre-riding and training with personal entourage while the rest of the team was working the race circuit. Would Lance have had the same success at the tour had he also raced the kind of schedules all others do?

I was a casual cyclist in the 90's, I occasionally read some magazines that covered racing, I'd watch the Tour de France coverage if I found it on TV....and even I knew everybody was doping....

Actually, they would be “heroes.” “Hero’s” would mean belonging to Hero.

I think framing the question here as it does involving Pantani was a little disingenuous. I'm glad GL does set this straight a bit with his answer and comments.

Love LeMond, but auto racing is sport, and the cars are never equal (F1, LeMans etc. are not spec racing), and absolutely physical gifts of youth , hand eye coordination, and stamina are huge factors in success. Look at the F1 grid they don’t look very dissimilar to cyclists, all are very fit, implying the athletic component. Motorcycle way more so, those guys are hyper fit and strong and the rider can always elevate a slower machine.

I've often wondered why they are treated so differently. I can see why Armstrong is treated differently but he's the outliner.

The plural of "hero" is "heroes." You can't make a word plural by adding an apostrophe. Apostrophes are for contractions (e.g., "can't" or "don't") and showing possession (e.g., "Bob's eyes" or "the seven zebras' tails").

Giles Delion spoke out early too.

The problem is that the drugs since 1991 are so effective that they have made grand tour racing too easy and predictable. When LeMond raced, nobody knew if Hinault was going to take 5 minutes on everyone or lose 5 minutes to everyone. It was as much about survival as it was racing. Today, it is as predictable as a movie script.

So Greg never answered the question

Thank goodness Lemond was only injecting iron supplements when everybody else was starting to use EPO. This is the guy we can trust to tell us who the cheaters were--which was everyone--except for this one honest guy.

Armstrong was a classic rider. He never had the ability to win a grand tour without doping. This is well known. It was his sociopathic tendencies that made him win at all costs and destroy everyone in his path.

for me, Lance was a jerk, hurt people and this put a target on his back. others, people knew but it seems they did not go out of there way to hurt other.

The pirate, to my outside eyes, was likeable. Lance was just an alpha male jerk.

I don't think it's fair to say Armstrong was a mediocre talent. Was Indurain a mediocre talent? Pantani, Riis, Ullrich? Merckx during the amphetamine days of cycling? If so, then maybe Armstrong was too.

These are elite athletes. They all know what they are doing and are in complete control of their training and diet regimens. I don’t buy into “claims of ignorance”.

Everyone’s a sinner except Greg!!!

so what is Pogi or Jonas? Can you guys explain the domination? I watch NBA and sure few guys can take over in the playoffs but teams usually adjust and there is parity.

For me, its telling that doping is demonized because its performance enhancing...when so much of the sport is working on performance enhancing, of the equipment...and the body. The whole sport is not 'level' in that way. I think we govern doping in the wrong way. The focus should be on the health of the riders...not on whether the regime gives a performance advantage. But I'm not in the sport, so I don't really have any authority to claim that my idea is better than guys like Greg who understand the issues way better than I do.

Big Mig knew

You also need a certain level of physical fitness to be great at car racing. Especially Formula 1. Their bodies have to withstand enormous amounts of G forces, especially the neck.

Greg is a saint,he never took 💊🧪💉

Pantani is a hero Coz of his carácter and the way he raced, I loved the way he raced! Lance raced differently, but he also will be remembered for many years to come (he make trek a famous brand, he's foundation helped thousands of ppl with cancer! They transcended cycling. They will always be my heroes!

Lance Armstrong is now a hero after a few years and people forgot the dude is an a$$ and a cheat. I get it, one does not live with a resentment forever; but you see tons of comments justifying the guy, defending and glorifying his exploits

Sean Kelly tested positive for a stimulant once.. under questionable circumstances. Mentioning him in the same context as riders from the epo era is slander.

For me, doping has three levels, each level should be seen very differently. Level one, unintentional, occasionally given medicines that contain banned substances without knowing it, e.g. Eddy Merckx. Level two, intentional, knowing what one might take will increase one’s performance and still willing to take it, risking only their own career and reputation, e.g. Marco Pantani. Level three, total doping boss, not only did one have a plan to take performance enhancing drugs but also ask (not very nicely) others to join one’s plan, meanwhile threatening others who don’t want to join or others who want to expose one’s plan, e.g. Lance Armstrong.

Christophe Bassons? I really like Greg and was a huge fan, but I think he has a chip on his shoulder about Armstrong. I can't comprehend why Pantani gets a pass...... he's a doper, competitively and recreationally.

Merckx connected Lance with the doping doctor. Enough said.

Interested in Greg's opinion on Horner's Vuelta win? Clean?

Before Armstrong doped he was an extremely poor climber. His hematocrit was very low so he was able to use more EPO than others and escape detection by crooked UCI at that time. He was not the best athlete of all the dopers. Doping does not result in an equal playing field of all dopers. Basically cycling like the early NBA and Baseball during the quest for home run records was not an equal field also. Cheating has a long history. People who basically would only be able to work in factories or low paying jobs cheat because they don’t wish to earn a living by hard work determination and courage. They are limited people who are willing to be criminals rather than do the work to be successful through determination. Trump is a fine example. His father gives him 500 million. Almost all Trumps businesses failed for years and years. He kept it going by being a criminal. Armstrong and Trump are two peas in a pod. Destructive narcissistic criminals. The other cyclists who cheated were not of this extreme just people who were limited and whose only hope in life was some doping to survive as cyclists. Sean Kelly is an example. Terrific cyclist but when doping threatened his career he had no alternative.

They all doped. I think Tadej is doping too because he is so much better than everyone else. It isn't possible that he's that much better.

If Armstrong vo2 max etc was so unimpressive, how did he win the world championship (1 day race)?

Interesting topic. I didn't mind Contador cheating because I believed he was the best but wanted the sprinter Justin Gatlin banned for life because I like Usain Bolt.

The big difference between Armstrong and all the other dopers is that he was a jerk and mistreated his accusers. Nonetheless, he was my inspiration to start cycling and which I continue to this day.

When Greg says Armstrong was a mediocre talent he plays his hand and shows his bias. Lance was a lot of things, but he was a talent in cycling. Without PEDS he might not have won as much, but he would have won some things.

I dont think LeMond was on EPO, which was an absolute game changer when it hit the peloton in the early 90s. But you can bet he was on a liberal dose of pain killers, corticosteroids and amphetamines - standard fare for 80s greats like Fignon, Hinault, Roche, Moser, etc. It's true that it was still a time where a clean rider could win a race, a stage or a minor tour here and there if well supported, motivated, lucky and in top form, but no-one was winning grand tours on bread and water...

I'm interested in his opinion of Virenque.

Armstrong, whatever you say about him, was not a mediocre talent.

I don't beleive LeMond, if you're not doping, you're not winning, I think the only person not doping was Boardman, his marginal gains regards aero to win Prologues were the maximum he would ever achieve in that environment. IMHO it's obvious as to why he could win short TTs but not be able to anything else. When I look at how Boardman collapsed off the bike in his hour record and compare that to Wigggins who got off as if he'd hardly broken sweat summed up how much a difference there was. Wiggins I reckon could have done close to 60km if he'd actually gone all out but that would have been too obvious. In all sport but mostly the big business sports like soccer, tennis, golf, athletics and even rugby union, doping is rife but hardly any positives of the big names to protect the business and keep the plebs throwing money at it!

The plural of hero is "heroes", not "hero's". I'm sure that's just a typo in your vid title.

bro, hero plural is heroes

Pantani like obree was victimised. Pantani ended up with mental health issues and on reading about him nowadays he'd be diagnosed with mental health and ended up taking drugs not for cycling but to escape the pressure he was under from the justice system. Even eddy merckx stuck up for Marco. If a rock star takes drugs and dies like Winehouse or cobain they are hailed legends but a sportsperson can be vilified. Greg himself says riders aren't the cheats they are the victims of teams

I was a great fan of Greg LeMond during his career. But...on this subject...the way only SOME riders get destroyed for taking banned substances, and OTHERS don't---Greg LeMond is a damned hypocrite. I had some respect for his integrity when all I knew was that he criticized Armstrong for doing things. But now, no, that respect is gone. Because there is NO WAY that LeMond demonizes all these other riders who have doped all along the way and admitted it. Rank hypocrisy. If he does not condemn them all as viciously as he attacks Armstrong, then his attacks on Armstrong are bullshit, they are personal, they are vindictive...they do not stem from a sense of fairness. If it was FAIRNESS LeMond cared about, he would immediately, without hesitation, be showing the same animosity towards these other riders as he showed against Armstrong, and he doesn't. There is not a trace of it. Instead, he is making EXCUSES for the others. What this tells me is that LeMond hated Armstrong because Armstrong eclipsed him, surpassed him as the great American rider. What a shame. If LeMond was not going to attack ALL riders for doping, then he should have just kept his mouth shout about his countryman. Intead, he kisses the asses of all the Europeans who doped, and savages his countryman. Blech!

Bassons is the name Greg LeMond was trying to get

So Greg, everyone was doping, were you?

Lemond seems to struggle to complete a coherent sentence.

Let's be honest. Amstrong took the fall because he was a brash American, and because he had the audacity, or hubris, to make a comeback. It put him against the media, the cycling hierarchy, and the UCI. If he'd just floated off into the sunset in 2004 would we have been having the same conversation? Honest of Greg to say what would he have done if he'd started a decade later. Well we can look at Ullrich for that. Very similar riders, very similar talent. The one rider who impressed me the most in the 90s.

🔥

Doping in Sport should never be accepted, i hate the arguments that Armstrong fans & some cycling fans make that everyone was doing it. That simply isn't true. Although some of his rivals were also cheating, he had a massive advantage over them.

Greatest respect for Lemond but any cyclist pre 2010 will always have a cloud of suspicion

Heroes, not Hero’s

Kelly comes up a lot. Does Roche???

True tales from Saint Lemond of the velo.

What is it like to go from one of the top cyclists from the states to the biggest snitch in sports? LeMond stays relevant by exposing fellow cyclists for doping. Hey, Greg, are we suppose to believe that you are the only Tour winner who was clean during the peak of doping in professional cycling? We have to believe that you were beating your competition who were all juiced up on PED’s? 😢 It just ain’t so, Snitch.

The mental gymnastics LeMond goes through to justify or minimize the doping of guys he likes while vilifying those he didn’t. LeMond is a self serving joke.

“Armstrong a very mediocre talent” Take note, all you American cycling-bros😂

Everybody had and used the same as Armstrong..So if Armstrong won it means he was very talented. Besides that even to biggest chamlions have been caught and people choose to ignore that. Coppi, Koblet, Anquetile to name a few.

Always circles back to Armstrong. Bitter, table for one, Bitter!

heroes

It's a sport riddled with hypocrisy and decided that slaying Armstrong would absolve everyone else of the crimes. Hypocritical garbage, And Lance is still king for me.

Your title either needs to be Why Are Some Doper's Hero's & Other's Villain's or Why Are Some Dopers Heros & Others Villains just sayin.

His automobile racing comment made zero sense

Why are all of LeMonds shortcomings someone else's fault? I'm a LeMond fan but his narcissism is astonishing.

0% chance Lemond didn't dope

He likely doped too

how cares marco pantani is i legend

Heroes* - get the title right!

eh, not such a fan of this video.. Lemond kind of only half-addresses the question and then proceeds to circle around it, talking about the pressure on riders and stuff. it would be interesting to know why certain ex-riders (Pantani, Kelly) have essentially been absolved by the media and others are still (rightfully) facing questions (Indurain). for the record, Armstrong I think should be vilified. He ruined a lot of people's careers, and threatened many more.

I do not believe Greg raced fully clean either.

Greg is a three times TdF winner. And he was clean? I don’t know, but come on…

Once loved cycling, but not this circus full of clowns 🤡. The sport of cycling is slowing killing itself.

To me if you were a doper your just as bad as Armstrong. They should either remove all the race wins and records of known dopers or let them all have their race wins and records but put an asterisk next to their name like Major League Baseball did with the steroid users. Although I have great respect for Greg, it obvious that he knows nothing about Auto racing if he thinks it's a level playing field. There is a reason why guys like Verstappen dominate.

Did Greg dope or not ?

I don’t see any dopers as villains.

Racing is not a sport? Someone should get Greg in a kart and see how long he lasts lol. Shacking my head. Why do people talk about things they don't know anything about? And he said that his mother taught him to never open his mouth if he doesn't have anything to say either...