Gregs Greatest Victory - a legit athlete

Lots of respect is due for Greg LeMond

With three days to go in the 1989 Tour de France, everyone was saying the race was as good as over. We were in the alpine village of Villard-de-Lans, a couple hours after race leader Laurent Fignon had won stage 18 in a solo breakaway and pushed his overall lead over Greg LeMond to 50 seconds. I’d arranged to interview LeMond after he had dinner with his family, so in view of Fignon’s latest demonstration I was expecting him to be somewhat despondent. Instead, when he sat down with me on a grassy bank overlooking the valley, a smiling LeMond said he was just so grateful to be competitive again, three years after he won the Tour for the first time, two years after he almost lost his life in a horrific hunting accident and a month after he battled his demons at the Giro d’Italia before ending it strongly in the closing time trial.

“He didn’t really attack,” LeMond noted. “Somebody let a gap open [in the echelon], and Fignon just rode away behind the cars and paced himself off the front. The cars were sometimes 10 inches in front of him—I was mad that day! The PDM guys were all yelling at me to ride, but only [Sean] Kelly was riding a little, and they had others like [Steven] Rooks and [Gert-Jan] Theunisse just sitting on the back. I could say a whole mouthful about that team.” At one point, LeMond chased with Delgado, who was up to fourth on GC after strong rides in the Pyrénées. Luckily for LeMond, a change in wind direction hobbled the breakaway riders—but only after Fignon and Mottet had raced 40 kilometers together in just 50 minutes!