The near-unanimous answer is Eddy Merckx of Belgium, nicknamed the Cannibal for his refusal to leave any race for his rivals. Between 1965 and 1978 he won a record 525 races, including 11 Grand Tours, three World titles and 19 Monuments, dominating sprints, mountains, time trials and one-day Classics alike, a range no rider has matched.
Armstrong won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, but in 2012 a United States Anti-Doping Agency investigation concluded he had led the most sophisticated doping programme the sport had seen, involving EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone. Faced with sworn testimony from former teammates and detailed evidence, the UCI stripped all seven titles and banned him from the sport for life.
Pick two names from this sport’s all-time list. The larger number in each shared stat is highlighted.
| Stat | Eddy Merckx | Tadej Pogacar |
|---|
Tick a point once you could explain it in your own words. Ticks stay on this device.
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The near-unanimous answer is Eddy Merckx of Belgium, nicknamed the Cannibal for his refusal to leave any race for his rivals. Between 1965 and 1978 he won a record 525 races, including 11 Grand Tours, three World titles and 19 Monuments, dominating sprints, mountains, time trials and one-day Classics alike, a range no rider has matched.
Armstrong won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, but in 2012 a United States Anti-Doping Agency investigation concluded he had led the most sophisticated doping programme the sport had seen, involving EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone. Faced with sworn testimony from former teammates and detailed evidence, the UCI stripped all seven titles and banned him from the sport for life.
A domestique, French for servant, is a rider whose job is to support a team leader rather than win for themselves. Their duties include fetching bottles and food from the team car, shielding the leader from the wind for hours, chasing down rival attacks, setting a hard tempo on the climbs to soften up opponents, and pacing the leader back to the bunch after a puncture or crash.
The objective in road cycling depends on the event. In a one-day race the winner is simply the first rider across the finish line after a set course, often 250 to 300 kilometres long. In a stage race such as the Tour de France, riders complete a sequence of daily stages, and the overall winner is the rider with the lowest cumulative time across every stage, recorded to the second.
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