Cancellara – clean as fooking whistle. Been awesome all way through his career with steady development from his start with mapai and fassa to the awesome rider he is now.
So something similar to Armstrong who was World Road Race Champion long before he ever rode the Tour.
So where do you draw the line? Everyone knows Bjarne Riis doped, strip him of his titles?
Pantani, Vinokourov, Anquetil – how far back do you go? The crusade to get Armstrong is doing the sport more harm than good. By all means clean up the sport, I’m all for that (all sports, not just cycling) but FFS look forwards, not back.
And besides, you take away Armstrong’s Tour wins, how far down the list do you go before actually awarding the Maillot Jaune.
Here’s the top 6 from 2000:
Lance Armstrong
Jan Ullrich (Operation Puerto and known blood doper)
Joseba Beloki (implicated in Operation Puerto but never charged)
Christophe Moreau (tested postive for steroids)
Roberto Heras (tested positive for EPO)
Richard Virenque (took pretty much every performance enhancing drug under the sun)
Hmm, long way down the list before you can find a clean winner… Utterly pointless to pursue it.