Farewell Alberto

Emotional times yesterday at the conclusion of the Vuelta, and with his brilliant stage victory the day before, we bid farewell to the winner of:
THREE Tours
THREE Giros and
THREE Vueltas
plus innumerable other victories.

With the passage of time, his greatness will be recognised and acknowledged, long after the baying, jealous, persecuting hounds have been relegated to the footnotes of history.

We are grateful to have lived in his era.

Two Tours and two Giros plus big question marks over his whole career, not someone to be championing in my opinion, he's a throwback to the Armstrong era and not in a good way.

Well, as we have one post at the extreme positive end of the spectrum and one on the other side I suppose I'll put in my middle ground contribution.

First up - he doesn't have 3 of each grand tour. It's 2 Giro, 2 Tour, and 3 Vuelta... even long after any baying, jealous, persecuting hounds are forgotten no one is going to restore any titles to him. Or does/should Armstrong still have 7 Tour titles? I will forever be sceptical of his pre-ban results, but the rules are the rules and the record is what it is. That's not being jealous or persecuting, it's just acknowledging that he was cheating, he got caught and he got punished.

But, for all that, his performances post 2012 were never what they were before the ban, and I don't think that is all just age. Even though he lacks the guts to admit his earlier indiscretions (and possibly just doesn't want to lose even more titles...), I do think part of the difference is that he has been a clean rider since. He's done some great rides in that time, and does deserve a lot of credit for that. I was delighted to see him put in the ride he did and get a deserved stage win - a good way to cap off a very successful second half of his career.

Still a great rider-I'll always regard him as the 3 x 3 GTs champ. The Clenbutarol business was highly dubious in my view, and the post taking away of the Giro vindictive.

Does anyone really believe that Armstong's 7 victories won't be reinstored one day?