The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article today that sums up the impact of American riders on the pro peloton since Greg Lemond. The author, Sam Walker talked to Jonathan Vaughters, Bobby Julich, and Peter Cossins from Procycling.com to get some answers.

{Floyd Landis'} miraculous comeback has already revived a question that's been puzzling the sports world for nearly a decade: How can the Americans consistently dominate a sporting event that's about as popular back home as professional bass fishing?

The answer lies with a generation of American riders, all born within five years of each other, who spent the 1990s stumbling through Europe in search of a formula that would help them beat the world's cycling powers.... Their success seems to have been aided by a jumble of factors: an excellent Olympic training program, a shortage of stateside races, a changing of the guard among Tour de France sponsors and to some extent, their own unorthodox approach to training and technology.... "This group of American cyclists is probably the most eccentric group of people you'll ever meet," says Jonathan Vaughters, a Tour veteran and former teammate of Lance Armstrong. "We're a bunch of obsessive-compulsive workaholic nutballs who'll do whatever it takes to win."

This article is definitely worth reading if you have a subscription to The Wall Street Journal.

Technorati Tags: Tour de France, Greg Lemond, Jonathan Vaughters, Bobby Julich, Sam Walker, Peter Cossins.