It should be Lance Armstrong? Ok, I'll grant you that he did win the tour a record 7 times consecutively, especially after recovering from serious life threatening cancer, but can you tell me what other races he participated in during the years he won these? I doubt you can name very many at all
In my opinion Lance Armstrong isn't worthy enough even to clean the bike of the great Eddy Merckx, who not only won the Tour de France 5 times, but the Giro De Italia 5 times and the Vuelta de Espaņa once. Ok, so his 5 tour victories were not consecutive, (1969,70,71,72 and 74) but this was through no fault of his own, the 1973 tour he was asked not to participate in by the French, so he opted for the Vuelta, which incidentally he won, so it would be correct in assuming that if he had taken part in the 1973 Tour, he would most likely have won that!
Add to this the many other road race victories he notched up during this period (1968/9 - 1974) and you will see that he didn't just train year round for the Tour, he was training and competing throughout the year).
Oh, also world champion 3 times and former world holder of the 1 hour record (he held this from 1972 to 1984)
Like I said, this is of course my own opinion, but judging by the overall statistics, not just one race (albeit a huge race), Eddy Merckx will always stand as the benchmark of pure cycling dominance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_Merckxhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong
