# "Mapei: The greatest ever team"



## Creakyknees (Sep 21, 2003)

per Cyclingnews, anyway. 

Mapei: The Greatest Ever Team | Cyclingnews.com

I have my doubts... but its a good article anyway.


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## Local Hero (Jul 8, 2010)

Excellent! 

This will make selling that old Mapei jersey on ebay even easier!


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## spookyload (Jan 30, 2004)

If you are around long enough you will win races. They were never a spectacular Grand Tour team. I would give the nod to La Vie Claire for sheer dominance, just not as long.


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## Alaska Mike (Sep 28, 2008)

Flandria is the greatest team ever. Watch _A Sunday in Hell_ for proof.


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## cpark (Oct 13, 2004)

spookyload said:


> If you are around long enough you will win races. They were never a spectacular Grand Tour team. I would give the nod to La Vie Claire for sheer dominance, just not as long.


+1

I believe 1985 team had Lemond, Hinault, Hampsten, Bauer and Jean-Francois Bernard just named the few I can remember....


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## Salsa_Lover (Jul 6, 2008)

Legano was also a great time on his time. 

Mapei simply dominated during the 90 and early 2000s.


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## Fignon's Barber (Mar 2, 2004)

Don't forget RENAULT, with hinault, fignon, and a young lemond.


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## MintZebra (Oct 20, 2011)

You don't need to win the Tour de France to be a GREAT team. Yeah, La Vie Claire was great but didn't win a lot outside of Grand Tours.
Mapei DOMINATED in their time. When you finish 1,2,3 in Paris Roubaix, have 4 World Champions and win the Giro I think they deserve the title. ANY race they started in they were considered a favorite. 

Tafi, Bartoli, Bettini, Friere, Olano, Ballerini, Tonkov, Museeuw, Camenzind, Vandenbroucke, Evans, Rogers, Alex Mercks, Steels, Nardello, Miguel Martinez........
Pretty hard to beat. Only Telecom/HTC has come even close!


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## PRB (Jun 15, 2002)

MintZebra said:


> You don't need to win the Tour de France to be a GREAT team.


+1 :thumbsup:


> Mapei DOMINATED in their time.


They were the number one UCI ranked team for seven years in a row (1994-2000).


> When you finish 1,2,3 in Paris Roubaix


I remember that one well...a finish pic like this must make a sponsor jump with joy....


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## spookyload (Jan 30, 2004)

I think that Museeuw being shown as a doper pretty much dismisses anything he ever did. When a team dominates in a time of the surge of drugs in the sports, it deosn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how. Just ask Museeuw. Wave your flags, but La Vie Clare and then Toshiba did more in a short time clean than this team did. For that matter, look at the legacy of HTC. They started a long time ago with Udo Bolts and Deutche Telekom. I would put them ahead of Mapei too.


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## Alaska Mike (Sep 28, 2008)

As I recall, the Mapei team sponsor decided the finishing order in that Paris-Roubaix. Of course, they did it three times ('96, '98, '99), so I might have the wrong year for that picture.

From Wikipedia:
_In the 1996 edition, the sprint for the line was decided 15 km from the finish. Directeur sportif Patrick Lefevere who was following the race in the team car talked with the owner of Mapei, Giorgio Squinzi, in Milan who said that Museeuw was to win the race. Gianluca Bortolami was second while Andrea Tafi was third._

A great classics squad, for sure, doped or not.


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## cda 455 (Aug 9, 2010)

Alaska Mike said:


> As I recall, the Mapei team sponsor decided the finishing order in that Paris-Roubaix. Of course, they did it three times ('96, '98, '99), so I might have the wrong year for that picture.
> 
> From Wikipedia:
> _In the 1996 edition, the sprint for the line was decided 15 km from the finish. Directeur sportif Patrick Lefevere who was following the race in the team car talked with the owner of Mapei, Giorgio Squinzi, in Milan who said that Museeuw was to win the race. Gianluca Bortolami was second while Andrea Tafi was third._
> ...


Cool!

Sounds just like the 1966 24 hours of Le Mans finish. 


The Ford team three GT 40's (Ford Mk II) had lapped the entire competition so many times that all they had to do was to cruise until the 24th hour to finish/win.

Henry Ford Jr. wanted a three-abreast finish. At the last second Bruce McLaren decided, "Screw this; I came here to win!" and proceeded to jump ahead to take the checkered flag. 

Ken Miles, who lead most to the race with 15 laps ahead of everyone else, came in second. He was told by Carroll Shelby to slow down and let the other 2 GT 40's (Ford Mk II) catch up (Via laps) so they all could cross the finish line together.


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## Creakyknees (Sep 21, 2003)

I bet Peter Post is fuming over that article..



















And perhaps somebody else may be asking, "greatest team of all time, you say?"


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## foto (Feb 7, 2005)

PRB said:


> +1 :thumbsup:They were the number one UCI ranked team for seven years in a row (1994-2000).I remember that one well...a finish pic like this must make a sponsor jump with joy....


Nice sunglasses. Looks like all three of those dudes could stand working off the love handles.


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## MintZebra (Oct 20, 2011)

I spent some time with Johan Museeuw at Eurobike in September. He still looked like he could pin a number on and take everyone to school!


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## RRRoubaix (Aug 27, 2008)

cda 455 said:


> Cool!
> 
> Sounds just like the 1966 24 hours of Le Mans finish.
> 
> ...


You need to study your Ford racing history. 
Ford did indeed want a 3-abreast photo finish, but absolutely everyone figured Miles/Hulme were the winners- that photo is not at the finish line, where the cars were indeed (nearly) 3 abreast, with McLaren allowing Miles the agreed upon victory (since he'd led nearly the entire race).
But the French declared that McLaren won by virtue of covering more distance in 24 hours, since he started several places behind Miles, despite both cars having done the same number of laps and Miles crossing the line first.
Having already won Daytona and Sebring, Miles was having the best year of his career.
Sadly, less than a month later, he died while testing the GT40 Mk IV prototype.


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## cda 455 (Aug 9, 2010)

RRRoubaix said:


> You need to study your Ford racing history.
> Ford did indeed want a 3-abreast photo finish, but absolutely everyone figured Miles/Hulme were the winners- that photo is not at the finish line, where the cars were indeed (nearly) 3 abreast, with McLaren allowing Miles the agreed upon victory (since he'd led nearly the entire race).
> But the French declared that McLaren won by virtue of covering more distance in 24 hours, since he started several places behind Miles, despite both cars having done the same number of laps and Miles crossing the line first.
> Having already won Daytona and Sebring, Miles was having the best year of his career.
> Sadly, less than a month later, he died while testing the GT40 Mk IV prototype.


Thus, it is why it was and is called a controversial finish.

I have seven books on the GT 40 history as well as a 2HR documentary on VHS, Mr. Know-It-All  . 


And there is no concrete/single answer to the controversial '66 24 Hours of Le Mans finish. *The fact is Ken Miles had approx. 15 laps on the nearest Mk II; THAT'S 15 LAPS AHEAD OF THE OTHER MK II's.
*

Did you get your info from Wikipedia :lol: ? Even Wikipedia has a new spin on the controversy: It says that Miles protested at the finish by slowing down  !! NONE of my GT 40 history books mentions that.   

*My points:*

*1)* All the races I know (Auto, cycle, track and field, motorcycle, etc-etc); The finish line happens to also be where the checkered-flag holder drops the flag. 

*2) THAT pic is of the finish line. Period.* The flag-holder dropped the flag on Mclaren signaling the finish _*(McLaren crossed the finish line first)*_, missed Miles because he was raising the flag, and then dropped the flag again on the Moody car. Can you post a pic of the finish line with 3 abreast that you claim???? They were driving 2 abreast with one behind towards the finish line but they did not cross the finish line that way.


*3)* Furthermore; Ken Miles died almost _*2 months*_ (17 August) _*after*_ the 24 hours of Le Mans (19 June), not "Less than a month later" as you claimed.


*4)* At minute 6:10 the YouTube clip shows the 2 abreast with one behind formation and the race finish, which the pic I posted came from. 

*5)* In addition: Notice where the 3 MK II's stopped AFTER the checkered flag was dropped. Maybe 100m (At the most) down the straightaway. Where was the finish line if that wasn't it???

Ford GT40 le mans 1966 - YouTube


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## bnoojin (Mar 24, 2002)

*true,*



MintZebra said:


> You don't need to win the Tour de France to be a GREAT team. Yeah, La Vie Claire was great but didn't win a lot outside of Grand Tours.
> Mapei DOMINATED in their time. When you finish 1,2,3 in Paris Roubaix, have 4 World Champions and win the Giro I think they deserve the title. ANY race they started in they were considered a favorite.
> 
> Tafi, Bartoli, Bettini, Friere, Olano, Ballerini, Tonkov, Museeuw, Camenzind, Vandenbroucke, Evans, Rogers, Alex Mercks, Steels, Nardello, Miguel Martinez........
> Pretty hard to beat. Only Telecom/HTC has come even close!


don't forget Tony Rominger, there are probably more...

I used to have the video of that '96 Roubaix. They dominated so badly in that race I would fall asleep watching it. I still think it was lame they didn't race for the finish, in the video you can see some heated exchanges between Johan and Tafi after Johan came back from the team car with the pre-arranged order. Tafi and Bortolami must've gotten a bonus check for letting Johan win.


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## Eric_H (Feb 5, 2004)

spookyload said:


> I think that Museeuw being shown as a doper pretty much dismisses anything he ever did. When a team dominates in a time of the surge of drugs in the sports, it deosn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how. Just ask Museeuw. Wave your flags, but La Vie Clare and then Toshiba did more in a short time clean than this team did. For that matter, look at the legacy of HTC. They started a long time ago with Udo Bolts and Deutche Telekom. I would put them ahead of Mapei too.


First off, if you want to drag HTC-Highroad's legacy back to Deutsche Telekom then you had better be prepared to accept that they were just as equally doped as any other team at any point in time. Remember this guy Riis who won the Tour in 1996? Or do you remember him by his moniker "Mr. 60%".

Basically what it comes down to when one looks back at the history of cycling is that for the most part any single rider or team can be compared with his/its contemporaries at a given time equally. Museeuw doped. BFD, so did the other guys of his era. Ditto for Rominger, VDB, Bettini and any other Mapei rider. For all intents and purposes in professional cycling the playing field has been more or less level on a macro scale. That is, whatever doping was happening at a certain time period was happening throughout the bunch. There are discontinuities, the greatest being the French in the post-Festina years. The French teams (excepting Cofidis) cleaned up hard and fast and their results disappeared while the Spanish, Italian, American, and German teams doped away unabashedly from 1998 to 2006. Another discontinuity is in the early 90s when Italy all of a sudden had a massive resurgence in strength, likely due to EPO use. Other teams and nations followed suit and by 1993 the field was level. A final example of a discontinuity is the use of CERA in 2008, which took guys like Schumacher, Piepoli, and Kohl to new heights.

Anyway, this will likely get kicked to the doping forum but my point is mainly that to paint one team as worse than the rest with respect to doping in the Mapei era is pretty tough to do.


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## Local Hero (Jul 8, 2010)

Here's me repping mapei with the sleeves rolled up. 










oh hell yeah


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## cda 455 (Aug 9, 2010)

Local Hero said:


> Here's me repping mapei with the sleeves rolled up.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Man, you look ghost-white in that pic  !


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## Local Hero (Jul 8, 2010)

thatsracist.gif


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## Fignon's Barber (Mar 2, 2004)

Local Hero said:


> Here's me repping mapei with the sleeves rolled up.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Quite a blank expression!


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## IcemanYVR (Jul 27, 2006)

I have the '96 Paris Roubaix on my HD, awesome race... still like to watch it every now and then. The Mapei powerhouse inspired me to buy a Colnago Master X Lite, still one of the favourite bikes I've ever owned.

The were a great team, built for the classics. They consistently produced results. Reiterating what an earlier poster said... drug use was rampant in that era, pretty much ensuring a level playing field.


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## cda 455 (Aug 9, 2010)

IcemanYVR said:


> I have the '96 Paris Roubaix on my HD, awesome race... still like to watch it every now and then. The Mapei powerhouse inspired me to buy a Colnago Master X Lite, still one of the favourite bikes I've ever owned.


Do you have the whole six hours or a highlighted version?


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## IcemanYVR (Jul 27, 2006)

cda 455 said:


> Do you have the whole six hours or a highlighted version?


No I wish... I have the last 45 or so (about 1 hour) Kilometers. Very crappy and low resolution Eurosport feed.

I'd buy it in an instant if I could find a DVD or VHS.


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## JohnHenry (Aug 9, 2006)

Polti!


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## cda 455 (Aug 9, 2010)

IcemanYVR said:


> No I wish... I have the last 45 or so (about 1 hour) Kilometers. Very crappy and low resolution Eurosport feed.
> 
> I'd buy it in an instant if I could find a DVD or VHS.


Check this out; There a Youtube clip that's one hour-fourteen min long of the 1974 Giro:

Eddy Merckx - The Greatest Show on Earth (1974 Giro) - YouTube


AND an hour and thirty-three min clip of Eddy at Paris-Roubaix:

A Sunday In Hell - YouTube


Here's another of the 1994 Paris-Roubaix that's an hour and fifty min:

Paris - Roubaix 1994 (NOS) - YouTube


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## atpjunkie (Mar 23, 2002)

*and the two stepchildren of mapei*

Domo Farm Frites then Lotto Domo and Quickstep have gone on to do well. Domo crushed the classics repeating the 1-2-3- at Roubaix and won Polka Dots w/ Virenque. Quickstep has massive classics palmares

winning the tour, meh. Doing the Flanders / Roubaix Double, yeah


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## IcemanYVR (Jul 27, 2006)

atpjunkie said:


> Domo Farm Frites then Lotto Domo and Quickstep have gone on to do well. Domo crushed the classics repeating the 1-2-3- at Roubaix and won Polka Dots w/ Virenque. Quickstep has massive classics palmares
> 
> winning the tour, meh. Doing the Flanders / Roubaix Double, yeah


nitpick... unless I read your sentence wrong but Virenque never won Polk Dot with Domo... his first 5 Polka Dot Jerseys came with Festina, and his last 2 came with Quickstep. His win in 1997 at Courchevel being my favorite.


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## atpjunkie (Mar 23, 2002)

*corrected, you are right*



IcemanYVR said:


> nitpick... unless I read your sentence wrong but Virenque never won Polk Dot with Domo... his first 5 Polka Dot Jerseys came with Festina, and his last 2 came with Quickstep. His win in 1997 at Courchevel being my favorite.


he just won Ventoux
he got his Polka Dots before and after


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