Lance Armstrong said the quiet part out loud yesterday.

"Tadej knows damn well what the real record is."

He's talking about Tadej Pogacar, who is closing in on his fifth Tour de France. Five puts him level with Merckx, Anquetil, Hinault and Indurain. The official summit of the sport.

Lance is saying Pogacar won't stop there. Because the number in Pogacar's head isn't five. It's seven.

I’m not sure Lance is wrong. 

The record books say those seven Tours never happened. Fine. But millions of people stood on the roadside and watched them happen. The riders he beat were, almost to a man, doing exactly what he was doing. We scrubbed the wins from paper. We never scrubbed them from the sport's memory.

I'm not defending him. He cheated, he lied about it for years, and he went after the people who told the truth. That part of the story doesn't get softer with time.

But there's a difference between a record being deleted and a record not existing. Everyone in the sport knows the difference. Pogacar knows it better than anyone, because he's the one riding in its shadow.

That's why Armstrong's comment lands. It's not an old man reaching for relevance. It's the one thing about that era nobody wants to say out loud: you can take a name off a trophy, but the race still happened.

So when Pogacar rolls into Paris, he won't be celebrating a record. He'll be counting.

Five down. Two to go. 

Where do you land? Is the record five, or is it seven?

Anthony

Ps. we’ve launched our fall training camp. We’re going to Girona Spain. 2 weeks. 2 options. Road or gravel. This October.

I’d love you to join us, all the details and sign up link is here https://roadmancycling.com/training-camps