Is Federer the greatest sports-person in the world?

[AJG]

Thats very true, but they must also have team commitments, so I would imagine cant always do exactly what they want? Maybe the very top guys can to a greater degree than the average pro cyclist though (theres a lot of guys filling out that field in the Tour!)... Cyclists also seem to place quite some emphasis on their own respective National Titles... There are lots of riders in the Tour they keep commenting on that are the current Nat Champs in the Time Trial or whatever, but I also heard Phil Liggett say that a lot of countries schedule their Nationals for like a week or 2 before the Tour de France... I guess so as not interfere as much with their preparation for that race.
Those guys are absolute freak athletes though really. Have you seen that commercial with one of the Schleck brothers, and he's saying (Im paraphrasing) "Every day in training I tell myself: NO not tommorow, Im NOT going to put myself through all this pain again! But there I am the next morning up at 5am in my nicks to do it all over again!"
Honestly I cant quite understand sportsmen like that, that just push themselves to such extreme limits of endurance in the events (and training), although I admire them for it.
I sail competitively, and that is alot more physical than people think (high performance dinghies), and I need to train for it (gym etc), but I am never completely exhausted after a race... Mind you the National Titles is 9 races in 11 days, and I can be pretty darn sore after that! Especially series that have constant 20+ knots of wind!