He did a Q&A at the cycle show at the NEC yesterday. Very engaging and interesting bloke. He is also a superb athlete. His achievements are too numerous to mention. Anyway, he was talking about training and so on and he said that the day before a 150km he would do 300km of hard training then race. 300km. We are constantly hearing that footballers cannot place twice in a week and they are constantly at risk of burning out. Eddy Merckx (and other cyclists) have shown it is possible to push the body to much greater extremes yet still perform as a competitive athlete. What excuse do footballers really have?
Speaking as someone who cycles and plays five a side, it's a lot easier to recover from cycling than football there's less impact on the joints in cycling and nobodies kicking you either. How many times do you hear on the tour that somebody couldn't attack on a mountain because 'They didn't have the legs today' just same in football they could play a game everyday but their performance would drop off if they don't get chance to recover!!
I agree that professional cyclists are incredible athletes. I think the stresses on the body are a little bit different. Cyclists do 2-3 weeks of intense competition (for the grand tours) then ease off, very few compete every week. Footballers are required to peak, typically, every 4 days for a 9 month period. It's different. A grand tour is closer to a World Cup than a league season. Without wishing to hijack your thread, do you think Froome will make a concerted effort to win the Giro to put him in that small group of cyclists who've won all the grand tours?
I don't think Froomey will go for the Giro, I think he is more obsessed with winning Le Tour, the Giro/Tour double much harder than the Tour/Vuelta, but it would be a great triple to have....
I think I agree with Arnside Red. I would love to see Froome go for the Giro but he will want to go for a fifth tour to put him on par with Merckx and I don't think the Giro/Tour combo is possible. He will 34 in 2019 so could be a possibility if he's got the fifth tour under his belt.
I'm not naive enough to say yes but any evidence against him is anecdotal. He was probably on red wine and amphetamines.
Whilst certainly not pointing a finger at Eddie Merckx personally , cycling in particular was known for the use of performance enhancing drugs, an old guy I knew was in the same club as Tommy Simpson , in Europe doping was part of the sport .
Not pointing the finger at anyone personally, the Spanish national team are always smacked off their tits. As are Barcelona.
I think Merckx was an animal - a supreme athlete but he did whatever was done in the day. I'm not sure Froome will target the Giro as by his own admission he has not done a great deal of riding in Italy over the years and has traditionally struggled there. I agree with the comment that he 'may' target it after getting his 5th TdF (as I am not sure he will be durable enough to aim for a 6th or 7th) I recently read a book called Ventoux by Jeremy Whittle. A really interesting read which was supposedly a history of the mountain and it's role in cycling. He cleverly interviews all the legends about how they dealt with it, how it beat them, why they feared it etc ..... but the interviews always brought up the drugs question. I'm anti-Armstrong, despise the guy but this book is the only time I have ever (briefly) thought 'OK, he makes a valid point here'. Also interviews with Hamilton and many other self-confessed dopers, but the interview with Merckx is interesting if only for the way the legend avoids answering anything performance-related and refuses to enter into the doping debate. Point blank. Froome himself conquered the mountain but Whittle couldn't interview him as he is on Froome's wife's blacklist meaning she wouldn't authorise an interview with him because of the authors past questioning of Froome's performance and of doubts over Team Sky and their modus operandi. A very good read for you cycling fans. I still don't get the adulation of Tom Simpson who was off his tits, but again, he was only doing what they all did at the time. I understand it a little more than I did. FWIW I have read a lot about Fuentes etc and Spanish doping and I am convinced the reason for the Spanish football teams Euro and World Cup wins were not footballing reasons alone.
Merckx doped throughout his career. On the topic, it's all about intensity, footballers could play every night of the week but they won't be anywhere near their best. With cycling it's why they warm up & go out for rides on 'rest days' in grand tours. Low intensity riding actually helps them.
Bang on. There's a reason they won't release the blood bags & it's not to protect cyclists like Valverde & Contador who have already been suspended. Allegedly, Real, Barca, Real Sociedad & AC Milan all used him.
I'm a cyclist ........ not a lifetime cyclist by any means, but have been ultra-keen for a few years now (I may have mentioned it once or twice ). Anyways, I went out with a mate earlier this year, lunchtime 30 miler where I asked him to push me (he is semi-pro at Road, Mountain and Cross - a real beast and fit as phook). I did 30 miles with my heart rate at Z4 and Z5. He only got into Z2 for about 10 minutes, the rest of the time he wasn't breathing. BUT, get him on a 5-a-side pitch. Comical to watch him disintegrate into a wreck after 5 minutes with his legs like jelly
The UCI (under Verbruggen?) threw a bit of cash at keeping it quiet and letting the Armstrong machine grow into a monster. FIFA however have far more cash to use to invest in protecting the global brand and will never allow Barca, Real and Spain to be 'outed'. IMO a halt was called before a scandal emerged, and funnily enough Spain turned **** again for a few years.
I was at the Cycle Show yesterday. The hour Merckx spoke for was excellent. He really spoke well He was an all round cyclist in an age when the racing was training. Over 500 wins speaks for its self in any era
