“RE: It Was His Head, Not His Knees!”

On 7/24/02, Brian Carnell said:

>>I've been thinking about this fact a lot for the last couple weeks:
>>the competitive spirit needs competition. Lance isn't getting any
>>competition, so he's not really racing competitively. He could try
>>to win the race with the biggest margin ever, but that's more like
>>riding against himself and to do that he'd have to leave his own
>>team behind. In stead, he's keeping the team together, and has done
>>a great job of showing what a great team leader he can be... but
>>that doesn't make the race any more interesting.
>
>You have to wonder how he'll be able to motivate himself for number 5.

The good news is that there are some younger guys coming up through the ranks who will be able to challenge him in the next couple of years, especially as he'll be that much older.

Also, Ullrich will be back next year (unless he's unbelievably stupid, which is possible), and he really is almost as good as Armstrong.

Why is Armstrong only six minutes ahead of the Beloki, instead of 30 minutes or an hour as he should be? Because he's only doing enough to beat the #2 guy. Put somebody in the race who is stronger than Beloki, and Armstrong will ride that much better.

>But that's a big problem in sports. Why did Michael Jordan try
>baseball? Why did Mike Tyson just give up and get his butt kicked by
>Buster Douglas?
>
>It must be really odd to work so hard for years and suddenly wake up
>and you're not just better than anyone else at something, but you're
>so good that nobody else can even come close.
>
>We should all have such problems.

It really is a problem, though. It's all relative. I don't think Lance is going to look back on this race as the high point of his career, because he's not giving it his all.

On the other hand, since he's doing just enough to be sure of first place in the end, there's something to be said for the amount of work he's putting into the rest of his team. Cycling really is a team sport, and he's let Roberto Heras and the rest of the USPO team shine. His best friend Georgie (George Hincappi) is even having a career-best race, partially because Lance is making sure the team stays together, works together, and encourages each other. He's becoming the Larry Bird of cycling: the whole team plays much better when he's there with them, instead of somewhere over the horizon.

Seth