About Lance ARMSTRONG...

[Thor]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

This is the greatest, and
>most prestigious cy-
-cing event in the World.

Which is a pity, seeing that it has long since been ruined by this fact.

[steve]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

>Apples and oranges. A relatively few people (percentagewise) have ever tried
>to race bicycles in the world. On the other hand, every able-bodied person
>since the beginning of human kind have tried to outrun others. Racing bicycles
>are not cheap and even if they were, many people throughout the world don't
>have paved roads upon which to ride them. Thus, most of the world is
>effectively shut out from the competition of racing bicycles.
Running, on
>the other hand, is the most participated sport on the planet. So the best
>bicycle rider is truly great, but by no stretch of the imagination, on par with
>the world's top runners.

You make it sound as though other sports are populated by people who are not good enough at running, or even that the cream of the crop of runners comes from a larger "crop" than other sports. I don't agree. I have no reason to believe that someone would stick with running over more lucrative, or even more fun, sports simply because they have tried it and are good at it.
Also, while everyone has run at some time in life, I don't think that there are more people trying to make it as a top professional in running than in, say, bicycling where there is more money down the line for all professionals riders. Thus, the "crop" from which the "cream' of the runners is derived is not necessarily larger or more athletic than many other olympic and professional sports.

[mal]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

Running, on
>the other hand, is the most participated sport on the planet. So the best
>bicycle rider is truly great, but by no stretch of the imagination, on par with
>the world's top runners.

You must be pulling our leg??? Surely you're way of thinking makes walking the greatest competitive event, as even more people have walked than run.
If you picture the T D F, as 21 Olympic Finals in a row, mostly marathons, you'd get an idea of how tough the sport is.

And I was riding a bike to school long before I was competing at high level. All I can say now is that I wish I'd been a cyclist. What a spot that is - and generally good on your knees.

[voodoogato]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

So
>the best
>bicycle rider is truly great, but by no stretch of the imagination,
>on par with
>the world's top runners.


Not on par? WTF?

You must be pulling our leg??? Surely
>you're way of thinking makes walking the greatest competitive event, as even
>more people have walked than run.
>All I can say now is that I wish I'd been a cyclist. What a spot that is
>- and generally good on your knees.


I don't know if being "good on your knees" is a sport......but I'm not here to judge......and in that vein, and to follow the logic of the original premise, I would hazard a guess that at least as many people have tried to lift something heavy as have run - so if we extend the argument, does that make weighlifting the only other sport that is "on par" with running?

Seriously, how much does mass participation define the way we see the relative value of the event? This has been the way the 100m has promoted itself forever - ie. there are more people worldwide who attempt the 100m, therefore it is the most competitive and the most difficult to win, but the reality is that it also requires much less investment in order to attempt - it's by far the easiest running event to try.

By investment I mean time and effort - it takes much more time and effort to attempt a longer distance - even if we extend up to the 200m, we see the difference - most people could get to the end of a 100m straight, but there are a lot that would be crawling by 180m, with their eyes crossed and their hr at 210, so to attempt the longer distances, the investment increases accordingly. Is it 422 times more difficult to run a marathon as it is to run the 100m? Probably not, but degree of difficulty has to be taken into account somehow. Riding a bike is more complicated than running - does that count for anything?

It would be interesting to come up with an objective way of evaluating how competitive different events are. I think depth of field has to be limited in some way - so that the pyramid doesn't become unrealistic - like including everyone who has ever taken three quick steps in a row as a "runner".

I'd say starting with the world record or other comparable mark and working down from there would be one way of doing it - so that the measurement is the steepness of the compteitive pyramid at the top, not the width at the base.

[MJD]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

AP AOY for 3rd year in a row.

[mal]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

(I'd say starting with the world record or other comparable mark and working down from there would be one way of doing it - so that the measurement is the steepness of the compteitive pyramid at the top, not the width at the base.)

1. Do you assume that all world records /bests are equal?

As an aside, if we confine this "comparison of worthiness" to track and field, I believe we should start by stacking men's and women's performances against each other rather than sports that are unrelated.

Which women's world record is "equal" to a men's record?

[Track fan]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

If he is clean a biggggggggg if he would be up there with Nuurmi only. Nobody else could compare to him. I won't say Lewis or Sayaneev because they were in short burst events which is is closer to velodrome racing.....

[79.]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

I think he deserves, with Michael PHELPS, to
get the 2004 trophy of the best US sportsman,
more than anyone else!...

[MJD]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

Pretty sure Manning was second in the AP voting.

[voodoogato]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

>1. Do you assume that all world records /bests are equal?

It would be nice to be able to, but realistically, no - for a bunch of reasons.

Even some of the indisputibly incredible records aren't equal - one that comes to mind is the men's pv record, just because of the way that Bubka toyed with it - had his career continued for more years injury free, had there been anyone to push him, had there been a big bonus for a certain height, or even if his bonuses were only paid every five centimeters.......lots of variables that would lead me to assume that it's a soft record, if only in the Bubka universe (making what Bubka did more incredible in my mind).

Having said that though, world records could be a starting point.

I think one of the determining factors to distinguish which records are more valuable would be how many people are within a certain percentage of the world record - so if there are 50 people within one percent of the world record, we could safely assume that the record is pretty close to it's potential.

This element of number of competitors within a range of the record/winning time of the year could be used in a year to year evaluation of performances also - taking Athens for example, the women's 800m would rank extremely high, because of the proximity of the athletes in the final - the tighter the finish, factored by the number of athletes in proximity, ergo the more competitive the event, regardless of the number of people who actually started the event.

It could also apply in a cross disciplinary way - to individual sports that are each measured in time/distance anyway.


As an
>aside, if we confine this "comparison of worthiness" to track and field, I
>believe we should start by stacking men's and women's performances against each
>other rather than sports that are unrelated.

Which women's world record is
>"equal" to a men's record?

Oh, look! A pterodactyl. (Trying to avoid looking at my own can of worms being opened).

The two to compare would be the ones that have the most all time results that are the closest the respective records without breaking them.

[79.]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

Bonjour XC RUNNER...
My 2004 thread is 265 now!!!
(one more than yours)

[MJD]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

Yah but it won't be midnight on the west coast for almost 8 hours.

Discuss.

[MJD]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

"He said on Monday that he was so fascinated by trying to break the world record for one hour that he was investigating putting a roof on a velodrome in Colorado Springs, Colorado, so he could make the attempt at high altitude."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/11/sports/bike.html

[MJD]

Re: About Lance ARMSTRONG...

Very cool.

"Armstrong to Ride in the 2005 Tour de France"

http://www.teamdiscoverychannel.com/new ... 5news.html