Note that my comparison was with Indurain, not the other 3 persons.
Before winning the Tour de France, Indurain was best known as a
Delgado 'super domestique'.
In any case, Armstrong won more races than Indurain, even if you don't
count
the Tour de France. Indurain did win the Tour of Italy, but I believe
that
Lance's 2 extra Tours de France wins count for more than that. It
is true that Indurain won an Olympic gold medal, but I believe that
Lance's World's road race win (where he beat Indurain in his prime)
counts
for more. Indurain won one Classic road race, San Sebastian, but so did
Armstrong, who also won the Fleche Wallonne.
Clearly, Armstrong is way ahead of Indurain.
-ilan
Quoted message said:Those other legends commanded people's respect before they started
winning their tours. They won many other races besides their tours.
Lance was a cocky [censored] who'd won a few big things (yes, including a
worlds). He was not well liked by the peloton at-large, and he occupied
pretty much zero in terms of mental equity with the press and the fans
before the 99 Tour.
He was not a candidate for the "all time greats" list before winning
his tours, but most of the others were.
Lance is a guy who won a bunch of TDF's and some other [censored]. The other
guys wona LOT of [censored] AND several tours.
ilan said:In their list of Tour de France legends Armstrong appears 5th, behind
Indurain!!
http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme/TDF_06_LEGENDES.html
Once again, this proves L'Equipe's irrational hatred of Lance
Armstrong, since
his achievements are objectively superior to Indurain's in almost every
respect:
He won more Tours, he won more stages, he won many road stages during
his overal
wins (Indurain = 0), he won a stage in his first participation, he won
more stages
before his tour wins, etc., etc. He even gave up stage wins, a la
Indurain. As far
as I can tell, Indurain was superior to Armstrong in his domination of
the time
trials by almost 3 minutes in two of his tour wins.
Oh, and note that in their caption on Tour legends, Armstrong does not
even
appear, as they only give pictures of their top 4.
-ilan