Kelly no.2 best cyclist

paddy's hill

Just found this site when surfing.
It lists Sean Kelly as the no.2 best of all time. Any ranking I seen before had him at 4 or 7.

http://www.cyclingranking.com/

SACH Central

I'd take that list with a pinch of salt, if I were you - Hinault at No. 14??

I think the definitive lists reads 1. Merckx 2. Hinault 3. Anquetil 4. Kelly at least in my opinion.

jinka

what about indurain,armstrong etc!

Running Bing

People are in denial over Armstrong.

Even if you hate the guys guts he is clearly one of the greatest.

King Kelly is well up there...absolutely devoured the classics.:D

Raam

I posted a link a while back that has Kelly at fourth. Armstrong is tenth. It's done by awarding points for wins. I'll try find it.

jinka

Oh yeah its cool to dislike Armstrong. Forgot that. He's as clean or dirty as the rest of them. Thankfully im not a sheep that follows the herd.
Kelly maybe top ten at best but never won the Tour or worlds so....

ednwireland

Running Bing wrote: »

People are in denial over Armstrong.

Even if you hate the guys guts he is clearly one of the greatest.

King Kelly is well up there...absolutely devoured the classics.:D

Denial, dont think so he only raced one race a year for 7 years not gonna take you to the top of any rankings

some of us watch more than one race a year you know

jinka

Yeah one race but what bloody race! Who cares about Paris/nice blah blah. The tour is THE race.

Like Dublin is Ireland:p
only joking.....

Raam

Here is the original thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055493375

---

Full rankings here:
http://www.thevirtualmusette.com/pos...-rankings.html

This is how the results were determined: http://www.thevirtualmusette.com/pos...nd-adjustments

I had read that Sean is regard as 4th best, but he gets 7th here.

1. Eddy Merckx, Begium (1966-1978)
"The Cannibal"
Total points: 410.50

2. Bernard Hinault, France (1975-1986)
"The Badger"
Total points: 232.50

3. Fausto Coppi, Italy (1939-1959)
"Il Campionissimo"
Total points: 219.5

4. Gino Bartali, Italy (1935-1954)
"Il Pio";"Il Vecchio" - The Pious; The man of Iron
Total points: 213

5. Jacques Anquetil, France (1954-1969)
"Maître Jacques"; "Monsieur Chrono" - Gentleman Jacques; Mr. Chrono
Total points: 184

6. Rik Van Looy, Belgium (1953-1969)
"The Emperor of Herentals";"Rik II"
Total points: 152

7. Sean Kelly, Ireland (1977-1994)
"King Kelly"
Total points: 146.5

8. Roger De Vlaeminck, Belgium (1969-1984)
"The Gypsy";"Mr. Paris-Roubaix"
Total points: 139.5

9. Francesco Moser, Italy (1973-1988)
"Cecco"
Total points: 131.5

10. Felice Gimondi, Italy (1965-1979)
"The Phoenix"
Total points:114 (Tied with Armstrong, but greater raw score)

petethedrummer

edit: nevermind

Running Bing

ednwireland wrote: »

Denial, dont think so he only raced one race a year for 7 years not gonna take you to the top of any rankings

some of us watch more than one race a year you know

How condescending. Congrats.


Merckx won everything...thats why he is number one, very few riders can do that, riders have their strengths and weaknesses. The bottom line is the Tour is the premier event on the cycling calender and Armstrong won it seven times. He utterly dominated the most important cycling race in the world.


He has to be up there. Maybe you have valid reasons for not rating Armstrong up there besides your dislike for him, in future just give them and leave the snide condescending attitude out of your post.:)

tunney

jinka wrote: »

Oh yeah its cool to dislike Armstrong. Forgot that. He's as clean or dirty as the rest of them. Thankfully im not a sheep that follows the herd.
Kelly maybe top ten at best but never won the Tour or worlds so....

LOL.....................

lukester

Running Bing wrote: »

The bottom line is the Tour is the premier event on the cycling calender and Armstrong won it seven times. He utterly dominated the most important cycling race in the world.

The point is that he concentrated on the Tour to the exclusion of everything else, unlike others who competed in and won other races and still racked up Tour wins.

The link Raam posted always seems the fairest evaluation of rankings to me, although of course I'd rate Kelly higher.

Ghost Rider

Personally, I love the fact that down through the decades cycling has given us such glorious monikers as "The Cannibal", "The Phoenix", "The Champion" and... "The Badger".

Raam

Ghost Rider wrote: »

Personally, I love the fact that down through the decades cycling has given us such glorious monikers as "The Cannibal", "The Phoenix", "The Champion" and... "The Badger".

We need to get some nicknames for some of our Boardies.

Blorg: The Crasher

Edit: actually I see Caroline already called him "The Sandaled Cyclist" in my earlier link

Running Bing

lukester wrote: »

The point is that he concentrated on the Tour to the exclusion of everything else, unlike others who competed in and won other races and still racked up Tour wins.

I think its a fair point lukestar. I can definitely see where your coming from.

The way I look at it is Armstrong was a grand tour rider, he just was'nt made for the classics (post cancer anyway), he choose to show his ability at the Tour de France rather than the giro or vuelta.

How many riders nowadays win more than one grand tour a year? Its the modern trend to focus heavily on one of the tours be it the Giro, Vuelta or TdF...LA choose the TdF.

Like I said he could never be up there with Merckx because he focused so heavily on one race but he was so dominant at the TdF he deserves to be in the top 10 imo.

rottenhat

Running Bing wrote: »

How many riders nowadays win more than one grand tour a year?

There is one who springs to mind....

petethedrummer

Running Bing wrote: »

The way I look at it is Armstrong was a grand tour rider, he just was'nt made for the classics (post cancer anyway),

There's an opinion among some that he was ideally made for the classics.

But I suppose all that muscle that permanently atrophised(is that the word?) due to cancer could never be re-built and he became a grand tour winner.

trad

What about Roche? Surely two grand tours and a worlds in the same year has to count for something

DePurpereWolf

No more naked Armstrong pictures.

Maybe if Lance wins the ToI, he'll get higher in the all time rankings.

Raam

trad wrote: »

What about Roche? Surely two grand tours and a worlds in the same year has to count for something

I'm sure he got awarded points for them, but just not as much as all those other lads!

corkandproud

Running Bing wrote: »

How condescending. Congrats.


Merckx won everything...thats why he is number one, very few riders can do that, riders have their strengths and weaknesses. The bottom line is the Tour is the premier event on the cycling calender and Armstrong won it seven times. He utterly dominated the most important cycling race in the world.


He has to be up there. Maybe you have valid reasons for not rating Armstrong up there besides your dislike for him, in future just give them and leave the snide condescending attitude out of your post.:)

Good point, I suppose it's a bit like Tiger Woods entering only 12-15 tournaments a year - he's still the best of his generation and his ultimate position in the sport will be determined by Major wins - now the money list, tour wins, world ranking or any other measure.

lukester

DePurpereWolf wrote: »

No more naked Armstrong pictures.

Oh, sorry, misread your post.

blorg

Raam wrote: »

We need to get some nicknames for some of our Boardies.

Blorg: The Crasher

Edit: actually I see Caroline already called him "The Sandaled Cyclist" in my earlier link

I preferred Tonto's "dynamiteur" :pac:

I actually don't crash that often, many others of ye have done far worse with the injuries, my last broken bone was five or six years ago when someone drove into the back of me.

As for Armstrong being "up there", he is 11 on Raam's list (tied with 10th) and 16th on the OP's one? Hardly surprising if it is done on a "points for winning/placing in races" basis, even with the Tour ranked highest (as I am sure it is, certainly is in the UCI world ranking) Lance is not going to get up there if it is the only race he does. Note Lance was never #1 in the official UCI Road World Rankings/ProTour either, even during 1999-2005, the period of his domination of the Tour... Jalabert, Casagrande, Zabel, Bettini, Cunego and Di Luca consecutively held the top spot during that period. The OP's site actually puts Armstrong at #1 in 1999.

paddy's hill

If you measure it by TOF Armstrong is 1st, by grand tours he is 6th, by any other means not in top 10.
Name Total Wins Tour de France Giro d'Italia Vuelta a España
Eddy Merckx 11 5 (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974) 5 (1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974) 1 (1973)
Bernard Hinault 10 5 (1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985) 3 (1980, 1982, 1985) 2 (1978, 1983)
Jacques Anquetil 8 5 (1957, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964) 2 (1960, 1964) 1 (1963)
Fausto Coppi 7 2 (1949, 1952) 5 (1940, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953) 0
Miguel Indurain 7 5 (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995) 2 (1992, 1993) 0
Lance Armstrong 7 7 (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005) 0 0
Gino Bartali 5 2 (1938, 1948) 3 (1936, 1937, 1946) 0
Alfredo Binda 5 0 5 (1923, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1929) 0
Felice Gimondi 5 1 (1965) 3 (1967, 1969, 1976) 1 (1968)

blorg

That's a ranking based on three races; I don't think you can rank road cycling "overall" based on three races.

paddy's hill

blorg wrote: »

That's a ranking based on three races; I don't think you can rank road cycling "overall" based on three races.

Thanks. That is the exact point I was making.

petethedrummer

paddy's hill wrote: »

If you measure it by TOF Armstrong is 1st

We can close the thread now, debate over.

Chips Lovell

Raam should be The Stilletto (the knife, not the shoe). Slim but deadly.

Lumen

el tonto wrote: »

Raam should be The Stilletto (the knife, not the shoe). Slim but deadly.

I think The Tapeworm would be more appropriate.

davyjose

Sorry to drag this up, but I've been trawling through Cycling all night (working the night shift), and I missed this first time round...

Anyway... Armstrong is also a former World Champion. He doesn't ever really seem to get credit for that...

shapez

The same can be said of Tom Boonan.

davyjose wrote: »

Sorry to drag this up, but I've been trawling through Cycling all night (working the night shift), and I missed this first time round...

Anyway... Armstrong is also a former World Champion. He doesn't ever really seem to get credit for that...

shapez

A few people seem to overlook some of Kellys victories in relation to grand Tours. Taking into account that the Vuelta a España was raced BEFORE the Tour De France back then.

Tour de France:

Jersey green.Points class 4 times (1982, '83, '85, '89)
Won - 5 stages

Vuelta a España

Jersey gold Overall (1988)
Jersey blue Points class 4 times (1980, '85, '86, '88)
Won - 16 Stages

niceonetom

I know in most sports the world champion is nominal "best" but, aside from the snazzy jersey, a world championship win just isn't that big a deal in cycling. It matters, but it's nothing compared to a grand tour (I'm sure Cadel would swap his stripes for a yellow jersey without hesitation). There are probably a lot of riders would put a classic ahead of the worlds too - I'm guessing a win at flanders or roubaix is more much coveted by any proper belgian for instance. The Olympic gold is even more devalued.

Kelly gets a lot of points not just for the length of his career but for its breadth too - the scoring really favours riders who could compete for both classic and for GC. No one really does that anymore (Cadel is the first CG style rider to be World champ since LeMonde I think?).

RobFowl

niceonetom wrote: »

(Cadel is the first CG style rider to be World champ since LeMonde I think?).

Olano 1995 Columbia, Gianni Bugno twice, mostly sprinters this decade though.

davyjose

RobFowl wrote: »

Olano 1995 Columbia, Gianni Bugno twice, mostly sprinters this decade though.

And Armstronj....

niceonetom

davyjose wrote: »

And Armstronj....

Well, when Lancy won it he was in no way a GC contender. If anything, back then he was touted as a future classics/one-day man.

Anyway, the point I was making was simply that the world championships are just another race among many.

You like lance. Good for you. I can never understand why lancefans seem so perplexed as to why not everyone sees him the way they do...

sy

Just to put another spin on Kelly's undoubted greatness here are some details on how competitive the guy was:
Milan San Remo
1980 4th, 1983 5th, 1984 2nd, 1985 7th, 1986 1st, 1987 4th, 1988 5th, 1989 5th, 1991 4th, 1992 1st Tour of Flanders
1979 26th, 1980 25th, 1981 8th, 1984 2nd, 1985 14th, 1986 2nd, 1987 2nd, 1988 4th, 1989 18th, 1992 73rd!, 1993 39th
Paris Roubaix

1981 19th, 1982 12th, 1984 1st, 1985 3rd, 1986 1st, 1987 13th, 1988 16th, 1989 15th, 1990 Broke collar bone in Flanders!, 1992 29thLiege Bastogne Liege

1979 20th, 1981 11th, 1982 10th, 1984 1st, 1985 4th, 1986 12th, 1987 20th, 1988 5th, 1989 1st, 1992 37thTour of Lombardy

1983 1st(first classic win), 1984 17th, 1985 1st, 1986 2nd, 1987 23rd, 1990 10th, 1991 1st, 1992 58thWorlds
1979 9th, 1982 3rd, 1983 8th, 1985 35th, 1986 5th, 1987 5th (Roche won), 1988 25th, 1989 3rd ( I cried!), 1990 5th, 1992 63rd, 1993 49th(Armstrong won!) A few other races that he was very competitive in

Paris Tours 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 18th, 28th

Amstel Gold 3rd , 4th, 7th, 12th, 17th

Het Volk 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 7th, 10th, 11th

Kuurne 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 14th

Fleche Wallone 2nd, 4th, 8th, 12th,

Tour of Switzerland 1st, 1st, 4th, 11th, 11th, 18th, 18th

Criterium International 1st,1st,1st, 2nd, 3rd + many stages

Three Days of La Panne 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 6th + many stages

Grand Prix de Nations (Time Trial which was THE time trial to win until it lost its prestige in the last 15 years) 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th

Other major near misses include

Paris Brussells 2nd
Blois Chaville 3rd
Four Days of Dunkirk 2nd
San Sebastian Classic 3rd
Wincanton Classic 2nd, 3rd
Barrachi Trophy 3rd
TDF 4th, 5th

I haven't mentioned his many wins in Spain, Paris Nice etc as they are easily googled! but thought you might like to hear of the near misses;)

I might finish this at another stage (before you are all bored to death!) but as you can see he was more than competitive.

davyjose

niceonetom wrote: »

Well, when Lancy won it he was in no way a GC contender. If anything, back then he was touted as a future classics/one-day man.


Anyway, the point I was making was simply that the world championships are just another race among many.

You like lance. Good for you. I can never understand why lancefans seem so perplexed as to why not everyone sees him the way they do...

Well tbh, I find the anti-Lance crowd equally perplexing. Despite what so many wish to believe, the guy is good for the sport. There are question marks over him, sure, as there have been over every GC contender since Greg Lemond, but he's raised the profile of the sport massively, and been a big part of the boom in cycling (what he did in the Phoenix Park was just fùcking awesome). And as of today, he hasn't dragged the sport into farce, like other Grand Tour winners have. Mainly though, I like him because i'm fascinated by him as a sportsman. but I'd love to know why others don't like him.

Fair point, he was a completely different cyclist before his illness, but he still won the World Championship, it's something that i feel he sometimes isn't credited for. perhaps the significance of that event has diminished (like, say, the FA cup has), but it's still a coveted title.

petethedrummer

And the time he won the time trial from Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel: http://www.velonews.com/article/96964

Is this a picture of the day in question?

Fair play to him doing it in a pair of Puma Kings.

@Davyjose: this is a Sean Kelly Appreciation thread. Drag up any of the Lance Armstrong threads to find out why people think he's a not nice person. Here I did it for you.

ednwireland

i've still got one of those jerseys,shame it doesnt fit

RobFowl

sy wrote: »

Criterium International 1st,1st,1st, 2nd, 3rd + many stages

He also did the Criterium international "grand slam" by winning the road stage, mountain stage, TT and overalll in the same year :eek:

RobFowl

davyjose wrote: »

Well tbh, I find the anti-Lance crowd equally perplexing.

IMO Lance discussions are a bit like compulsary helmets, everyone has a stong entrenched opinion and will not change it

FTR I hate what he has done to the sport but am in awe of what he has achieved regarding cancer research, awareness and funding

alfalad

RobFowl wrote: »

IMO Lance discussions are a bit like compulsary helmets, everyone has a stong entrenched opinion and will not change it

FTR I hate what he has done to the sport but am in awe of what he has achieved regarding cancer research, awareness and funding

Not wanting to change this thread but just wondering as your a doc I believe? In your opinion has he done a lot in the area of research or is it just awarness?

RobFowl

alfalad wrote: »

Not wanting to change this thread but just wondering as your a doc I believe? In your opinion has he done a lot in the area of research or is it just awarness?

The livestrong foundation has and is funding a huge amount of research worldwide, they also promote awareness and he personally pushes the awareness issue tremendously.

alfalad

RobFowl wrote: »

The livestrong foundation has and is funding a huge amount of research worldwide, they also promote awareness and he personally pushes the awareness issue tremendously.

Naturally I know of the work he does but I know nothing in terms of research etc so wasn't sure what a professionals opinion would be! Thanks for the response!

trad

petethedrummer wrote: »

And the time he won the time trial from Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel: http://www.velonews.com/article/96964

Is this a picture of the day in question?

Fair play to him doing it in a pair of Puma Kings.

@Davyjose: this is a Sean Kelly Appreciation thread. Drag up any of the Lance Armstrong threads to find out why people think he's a not nice person. Here I did it for you.

I was the motorcycle outrider with Roche that day and his was a superb ride. I was there when Kelly came in and Rochie couldn't believe that he had been beaten. Great memories of that day and Kelly's retirement race.

ROK ON

The number on the bike says it all.

sy

Sorry if I’m boring you as not really a fan:rolleyes: but what about this for a Spring Campaign in 1984, arguably his best season along with 1986.

1st Paris Nice
1st Criterium International
2nd Milan San Remo
2nd Tour of Flanders
1st Paris Roubaix
1st Liege Bastogne Liege
1st Tour of Catalonia
1st Tour of the Basque


No cyclist since the great Merckx has surpassed this

Lance = “Red Rum” Sean = “Sea the Stars” Horses for courses, sorry couldn’t resist that.


@ trad Nice to be part of a bit of history

davyjose

RobFowl wrote: »

FTR I hate what he has done to the sport

He didn't do anything to it. The problems in the sport were around long before LA took anything, he simply used them to his advantage better than anyone else.

Point taken about this being a Kelly thread. I'll clear off