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Thread: Fell Running or Just Winning?

  1. #1

    Fell Running or Just Winning?

    I was reading about a conversation between Jan Janssen and Walter Godefrot - once both great bike riders. Janssen was World Champion and won the Vuelta and the Tour. Godefrot won three monuments: Liege - Bastogne - Liege, Paris - Roubaix and two Tours of Flanders and was later the DS with Deutsche Telekom when Riis won the Tour.

    And Janssen accused Godefrot of never liking riding his bike and Godefrot agreed and said that all he liked was winning.

    Riding or winning? Fell running or just winning races? An interesting distinction and I think I’ve talked with very good fell runners in both categories.
    "...as dry as the Atacama desert".

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Graham Breeze View Post
    I was reading about a conversation between Jan Janssen and Walter Godefrot - once both great bike riders. Janssen was World Champion and won the Vuelta and the Tour. Godefrot won three monuments: Liege - Bastogne - Liege, Paris - Roubaix and two Tours of Flanders and was later the DS with Deutsche Telekom when Riis won the Tour.

    And Janssen accused Godefrot of never liking riding his bike and Godefrot agreed and said that all he liked was winning.

    Riding or winning? Fell running or just winning races? An interesting distinction and I think I’ve talked with very good fell runners in both categories.
    Interesting subject, so here is a theory:
    The winners stop running when they stop winning. The runners run on regardless.

    So on that basis, Joss Naylor was a fellrunner, where Billy Bland was a winner. Fellrunning was just a medium in which Billy found he could win. When he stopped winning, he stopped running.

    Joss carried on regardless, so has Ian Holmes, or though he continues to amaze!

    Some stopped for other reasons, I think Kinchy was getting to much grief from OH. Might have carried on otherwise.

    PS Riis "winning" the tour, is a debatable concept in the light of later revelation!
    Either Armstrong did win the tour, or Riis , Ulrich and your friend Pantani didnt. I think LeMond was just lucky. He rode just after the tour de steroids and clampdown but before EPO, HGH and blood doping kicked in. In short the cleanest period of the sport. I do not think he can play holier than thou: who knows what decisions he would have made if he had to make similar choices.
    Last edited by Oracle; 28-05-2020 at 10:33 PM.

  3. #3
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    Taking this down a peg to Mr Average, who is never going to win, are they all running for fun or racing for PBs or to beat Fred from up the road?
    Do they give up when they can't beat Fred or times are slowing?

    Zen and the art of fell running.
    Don't roll with a pig in poo. You get covered in poo and the pig likes it.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Oracle View Post


    PS Riis "winning" the tour, is a debatable concept in the light of later revelation!
    Either Armstrong did win the tour, or Riis , Ulrich and your friend Pantani didnt. I think LeMond was just lucky. He rode just after the tour de steroids and clampdown but before EPO, HGH and blood doping kicked in. In short the cleanest period of the sport. I do not think he can play holier than thou: who knows what decisions he would have made if he had to make similar choices.
    Yes...as I said I've talked to the odd top-class runner over the years.

    I would not differentiate between Armstrong, Riis or the rest. I saw them all ride in the Alps and I can still vividly remember when Riis went away on Hautacam and also when Pantani left Ulrich for dead (I was on my bike and it was pouring down).

    Armstrong was made an example of pour encourager les autres - as distinct from, say, the despicable, loathsome Virenque. But I've got Riis' autobiography and I wear a Mercatone Uno top so it must just be my Christian nature to forgive!

    Except for LeMond for cheating Fignon out of his 3rd Tour (His autobiography is good. It suffers in translation - W.Fotheringham - but at least it wasn't ghost written).
    "...as dry as the Atacama desert".

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    I would like to think I've reached the dizzy heights of Mr Average, but being in contention for or even pinching the odd age category win certainly helps keep the racing interest going.

    Unfortunately it also helps the physio's bank balance as I tend to over do it and get injured!
    Visibility good except in Hill Fog

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by molehill View Post
    Taking this down a peg to Mr Average, who is never going to win, are they all running for fun or racing for PBs or to beat Fred from up the road?
    Do they give up when they can't beat Fred or times are slowing?

    Zen and the art of fell running.
    Well, as I have often written on here - winning is in the head. Or to win actual vet prizes - just live long enough.
    "...as dry as the Atacama desert".

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    Out of curiosity, where does the badger fit in your love or hate list?

    It is all contrasts. The blind eye to lemonds equipment violation, where verbruggen tried to push obree off his bike elsewhere.


    Quote Originally Posted by Graham Breeze View Post
    Yes...as I said I've talked to the odd top-class runner over the years.

    I would not differentiate between Armstrong, Riis or the rest. I saw them all ride in the Alps and I can still vividly remember when Riis went away on Hautacam and also when Pantani left Ulrich for dead (I was on my bike and it was pouring down).

    Armstrong was made an example of pour encourager les autres - as distinct from, say, the despicable, loathsome Virenque. But I've got Riis' autobiography and I wear a Mercatone Uno top so it must just be my Christian nature to forgive!

    Except for LeMond for cheating Fignon out of his 3rd Tour (His autobiography is good. It suffers in translation - W.Fotheringham - but at least it wasn't ghost written).
    Last edited by Oracle; 28-05-2020 at 11:40 PM.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Oracle View Post
    Out of curiosity, where does the badger fit in your love or hate list?
    As hard as nails (except on the cobbled classics) and willing to do anything to get his fifth tour (but as a French man - who wouldn't?) including betraying and running rings round LeMond - but he was always a pathetic whiner and for whom I have no sympathy 'cos he cheated Fignon (and how dumb to get shot by your own brother?).

    (NB A grudge is for life.)
    Last edited by Graham Breeze; 28-05-2020 at 11:52 PM.
    "...as dry as the Atacama desert".

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Graham Breeze View Post
    Yes...as I said I've talked to the odd top-class runner over the years.

    I would not differentiate between Armstrong, Riis or the rest. I saw them all ride in the Alps and I can still vividly remember when Riis went away on Hautacam and also when Pantani left Ulrich for dead (I was on my bike and it was pouring down).

    Armstrong was made an example of pour encourager les autres - as distinct from, say, the despicable, loathsome Virenque. But I've got Riis' autobiography and I wear a Mercatone Uno top so it must just be my Christian nature to forgive!

    Except for LeMond for cheating Fignon out of his 3rd Tour (His autobiography is good. It suffers in translation - W.Fotheringham - but at least it wasn't ghost written).
    Are you referring to the tri bars? Were they against the rules?

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by CL View Post
    Are you referring to the tri bars? Were they against the rules?
    Yes. Fignon maintains so in some detail in We Were Young And Carefree.

    Fignon was a great young talent but his career was basically long years of injury and decline after early success (after he retired he owned Paris-Nice for a while and that didn't end well) until his death from cancer.
    Last edited by Graham Breeze; 29-05-2020 at 06:56 AM.
    "...as dry as the Atacama desert".

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