[quote=“Pikeman”]
They talked about the rivalries between Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson in the mid 80s and how Johnson of course, took the rivalry to the next level.[/quote]
[quote=“therock67”]Lewis is proven to have doped by now is he not? As big a fraud as Johnson was.
Armstrong v Ullrich was great. Armstrong always won but for a fleeting moment every summer I hoped big Jan would find some form in July.
Coe and Ovett is a good shout - proper rivalry and they brought it to the pinnacle of their sport.[/quote]
I think that has more to do with LA '84 being a free-for-all since it was boycotted by the most likely bandits of the era; so drug testing wasn’t a priority.
[quote=“therock67”]Lewis is proven to have doped by now is he not? As big a fraud as Johnson was.
Armstrong v Ullrich was great. Armstrong always won but for a fleeting moment every summer I hoped big Jan would find some form in July.
Coe and Ovett is a good shout - proper rivalry and they brought it to the pinnacle of their sport.[/quote]
Yea I posted that above. Of that Seoul 100m final, I think not one have been shown to be clean, Jonson was a scapegoat, a guilty one, but a scapegoat nonetheless.
Coe and Ovett is my favourite so far, Ali and Louis/Foreman/Fraser also up there.
Not much of a rivalry considering Taylor won a stack of world titles and Mason won diddly squat but after Taylor beat him in the World Championship once Mason challenged him to a fight in the car park…
They’ve had awesome fights Scumpot. Good call. Jack Johnson v James Jeffries was presumably superb back in the day. Certainly plenty of historical resonance.
Tony Ward v Ollie Campbell got people interested in rugby for a while.
Senna and Prost is the obvious one in Formula 1. They really hated each other even though they were team mates at McLaren. The title always seemed to come down to the Japanese Grand Prix in those days. Senna won 88, then they crashed into each other in 89, handing the title to Prost before Senna got revenge in 90 by deliberately (I think) shunting Prost off at the first corner. That was a proper rivalry.
Lemond and Fignon in the '89 Tour de France was an absolute ding dong struggle. The yellow changed hands several tims between them until Lemond finally won by 8 seconds in the final time trial into Paris. There will never be another finish like that again.
Stephen Hendry v Jimmy White in snooker - I don’t want to talk about that one, I was a big Jimmy White fan.