Where were you when Greg LeMond came back to win the Tour?

BY CHARLES HOWE

JULY, 1999

Popular psychologists and social commentators call them “flashbulb memories” – events which, in this age

of mass-media saturation, achieve nearly instantaneous and universal dramatic impact. All of them, it seems,

involve violent tragedy; where were you when this charismatic world leader/celebrity was killed, when that

hightechnogizmo blew up in the heavens, etc.

Cyclists who recollect it, however, can cherish and draw inspiration from a moment of unqualified,

triumphant joy: where were you, that twenty-third day of July in 1989, when Greg LeMond culminated a

long comeback from the near-fatal gunshot wounds he suffered in April of 1987, to overtake Laurent Fignon

and win the Tour de France?

My own experience was perhaps typical, as I had been on a Sunday morning ride with a local club. “Well,

let’s go home and see if he took back 20 seconds from Fignon, or if he was able to manage something more

like 40,” I said sardonically when we had finished, referring to television coverage of the final-day time trial

due to air later in the afternoon. Nobody expected anything more than that.

And the initial (though erroneous) report I received upon arriving home wasn’t even that good: I was told

that he had won the stage from Fignon by only 8 seconds. You had to hand it to the Frenchman, I thought,

he rode a great race. But hours later as I tuned in, the tone and manner of announcer Al Trautwig and

commentator Sam Posey made it immediately clear that something extraordinary had happened. It scarcely

seemed possible as it unfolded then, and it all comes back so easily now . . .

The 76th Tour de France kicked off in Luxembourg on July 1 with defending champion Pedro Delgado

missing his start for the prologue time trial by 2:40, and remaining so unsettled that he was dropped during

the team time trial two days later. In last place on the overall classification, more than 6:30 down, he would

later attack in the mountains and literally climb back into contention, but got no closer to the lead than 1:55.

Suddenly, LeMond won an early (stage 5)

time trial, and claimed the yellow jersey.

“Daddy won the race!” blurted his 5-year-old

son Geoffrey excitedly during a segment taped

in Kortrijk, Belgium, where wife Kathy,

pregnant with their third child, had stayed

home with the rest of the family.

And indeed, the sight was stunning. After all,

Greg had shown poor form in the spring, and

although he had finished the Giro strongly

after being diagnosed with anemia and

receiving iron injections, the mere mention of

the name “LeMond” elicited peals of laughter

at a gathering of cycling journalists as they

discussed their pre-race picks. Now he

seemed to have a real chance; when the race

started, he said he would be happy with a top-

20 finish, but as it progressed, he kept revising

his expectations: “maybe top-10, maybe top-5,

maybe top-3, maybe top-1!” would satisfy

him, he joked.

STUNNING SIGHT – After a near-fatal hunting accident and

two years of recovery, even LeMond was surprised by his

return to top form.

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He held his ground in the Pyrénées and began a duel with Fignon that would see them trade the lead back and

forth no less than five times over the course of the race. With virtually no team support, LeMond was forced

shackle his trademark attacking style and follow wheels, prompting Fignon to accuse him of not riding like a

champion. “The Yankee is a genius wise guy who plays the role of weak chicken,” he groused, but even

Fignon’s team manager, Cyrille Guimard, admitted that LeMond had no other choice.

Fignon struck a heavy blow during the final climb of stage 17, to the top of l’Alpe d’Huez. Acting on instructions

from Guimard, who had seen LeMond’s shoulders begin to rock and recognized it as a sign of fatigue, Fignon

attacked with 4 km to go and dropped LeMond, who cracked badly and trailed in 1:19 in arrears; LeMond’s

directeur sportif Jose De Cauwer was able to block Guimard’s Super U team car several times but ultimately

could not stop it from getting up to Fignon and giving the decisive order. Fignon seemed to sew the race up the

next day with an audacious 24 km solo win at Villard-de-Lans, where LeMond’s attempts to chase were

hampered by his ex-PDM team-mates, Gert-Jan Theunisse and Steven Rooks. Still, LeMond was able to joke to

his wife afterwards: “It’s not over yet. It’ll only be a better story when I win.” Not even he could possibly have

dreamt just how prophetic this remark would become.

Nearly everyone did anticipate that LeMond would gain time in the last-stage time trial from Versailles to

Paris, but the distance of 24.5 kilometers was surely not long enough to make up any more than perhaps

35 seconds, at best, of the 50 he needed. “He can gain a second per kilometer, perhaps a second-and-a-half,

but two seconds? Impossible!” snorted Paul Koechli, directeur sportif for one of LeMond’s former teams,

and Fignon’s declaration that “He cannot win because I am too strong in the mind and the legs” seemed more

like justifiable confidence than arrogant boast.

ALPINE STRUGGLES – Shown here nearing the finish of stage 17 at l’Alpe d’Huez, LeMond conceded a total of

1 minute, 43 seconds to Fignon on this and the following day, which equaled his gains on the Frenchman in the

Tour’s two long time trials exactly.

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The rest has passed into rather familiar legend.

Shunning any time splits so as to maintain his

concentration (“I didn’t think. I just rode.”),

LeMond used a pair of bolt-on Scott time trial

bars and a Giro Aerohead helmet (the “tail” of

which was bobbed to conform with UCI

regulations) that helped him take a remarkable

58 seconds from Fignon, who might well have

won had he donned an aero helmet himself,

instead of letting his ponytail flap in the wind (it

is often overlooked that, but for the stage 2

TTT, where LeMond’s ADR team conceded

0:51 to Fignon’s Super U squad, the final-stage

drama would never have occurred.) Scenes of

the aftermath remain indelible: Fignon

collapsing on the ground in agony from saddle

sores after finishing, as yet unaware he had lost;

Kathy LeMond screaming “GRREGGG!” like a

teenager as he crossed the finish line; LeMond

running over to embrace her and Fred Mengoni,

the New York real-estate developer who has

supported so many young riders of promise, and

who would declare the day to be the happiest of

his life (“Don’t have a heart attack,” LeMond

urged him); LeMond putting Geoffrey on the

top spot of the podium before taking it himself;

and the playing of the national anthem, with a

final embrace between the top three finishers.

As he so often does, LeMond perfectly cap-

tured the moment on the podium with Fignon:

“What could I possibly say to him? What

could he possibly say to me?”

What, indeed.

* * * * * * * * *

American public interest in cycling began to rekindle in the early 1970s, when quality lightweight European-

style (“10-speed”) road bicycles were “discovered” and began selling in record numbers, with a boost from

record-high gasoline prices. Not surprisingly, road racing began to emerge from decades of obscurity and

move forward at this time in a number of ways. A numerical rider categorization system, based on the

European model, was adopted in 1973, and the racing rulebook was extensively revised in 1979 to conform

more closely to European standards and practices. In 1976, the national governing body for competitive

cycling changed its name from the Amateur Bicycle League of America to the United States Cycling

Federation, after the former was judged to be outmoded and inaccurate. The first national team was selected

in 1973, and the ’78 squad became the first to tour Europe, competing in the Tour l’Avenir, a stage race

billed as the amateur version of the Tour de France. The USCF began assembling a full-time staff in 1978,

most notably when Eddy Borysewicz, formerly a top amateur rider from Poland, was chosen as the first-ever

national coaching director, while David Prouty was named as its first executive director in 1983.

IRRESISTABLE – Framed by the Arc de Triomphe after a

“U”-turn on to the Champs Élysées, LeMond is just seconds

from a seemingly miraculous win in the final-stage time trial.

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All of this began to pay dividends. The

number of licensed riders increased from

5,035 in 1972, to 11,642 at the end of 1981.

Riders such as Mike Neel, George Mount,

and Jonathan Boyer competed with

distinction for European professional road

teams, and American stage races, including

the Tour of the Sierras and Red Zinger

Classic (later the Coors Classic) presented

courses as challenging as what Europe could

offer, while attracting increased media

attention. Excepting the performance of the

men’s teams at the 1978 and ’79 Junior

World Championships, it was female riders,

however, who provided the U.S. with its best

results in World Championship competition;

after a drought that saw just three podium

finishes since 1912, riders including Audrey

McElmury, Sue Novara, Sheila Young,

Connie Carpenter, and Beth Heiden garnered

no less than 14 medals on the road and track

from 1969-79.

Into the 1980s, the momentum accelerated,

with LeMond’s silver and gold medals at the

1982 and ’83 world professional champion-

ship road races, but surprisingly, this brought

little recognition outside of cycling circles.

More widespread attention came from his

debut in the 1984 Tour de France, broadcast

that year on American television for the first

time ever by CBS, and his second place in

’85, when he would likely have won had he not been ordered to hold back to allow Bernard Hinault a record-

tying fifth win. Although diminished by a Soviet-led Eastern bloc boycott and later tainted by revelations of

blood doping, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics provided another milestone as U.S. riders won a total of nine

medals (four gold) on the road and the track, breaking another drought that also dated to 1912. The impact

of these successes was aided by the unconventional and fortuitous scheduling of the men’s and first-ever

women’s road races, both won by Americans, on the opening day of the Games.

The culmination seemed to come in 1986, with LeMond’s dramatic struggle and ultimate triumph over Hinault

in the Tour de France, an accomplishment that attracted mainstream media recognition and earned him an

invitation to the White House from President Ronald Reagan.

All seems but muted prelude, however, to his 1989 triumph, which stands incomparably as the climactic

moment and seminal event in American cycling annals, as well as the most memorable finish in Tour history;

commenting immediately afterward, from a personal point of view, LeMond said that “Nothing compares to

this – nothin’, nothin’, nothin’,” but he may be seen to have spoken for the sport as a whole, both in America

and even Europe as well. The American public, unsophisticated as it was, sensed that LeMond’s comeback

was rare and special, his triumph almost miraculous. Bicycle road racing gained recognition as the most

demanding of endurance sports, and the Tour de France as one of the world’s great sporting events, rather

than a European curiosity. Dynamic, open, intelligent, honest, outspoken, optimistic, innocent, full of life, and

UNDERGROUND NO MORE – LeMond’s charisma and

remarkable accomplishments propelled bike racing into the U.S.

sporting mainstream.

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accommodating to all, LeMond seemed a kind of quintessential American boy-next-door, tailor-made for the

1980s; had he not been real, it would have been necessary to invent him. Ahead of him lay another world

professional road race championship and Tour de France win, recognition as ABC Wide World of Sports

Athlete of the Year, and ultimately, Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year.

And for the author, cycling time and history seem to have stood still since that twenty third-day of July . . .

ten years ago this month.

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PHOTOESSAY

The Moment, 7/23/89

The climax of LeMond’s unforgettable last-day time trial performance is captured here in a series of images

by Graham Watson.

Since he had started the time trial 3 minutes ahead of Fignon, LeMond was able to count down the seconds

as he waited for Fignon to arrive at the finish. Going into the stage, the Frenchman had a lead of 50 seconds,

so he had to arrive no more than 3:50 after the American, who was now in the throes of anticipation. . .

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When the allotted time was up, LeMond erupted with an unbridled joy . . .

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. . . that was in total contrast to Fignon’s agony. Due to a painful boil, Fignon fell from his bike after

coasting to a stop just past the finish line.

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Upon learning he had lost, Fignon cried for the first time in his career.

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In a gesture all his own, LeMond shared the podium with his son Geoffrey.

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“What could I possibly say to him? What could he possibly say to me?”