Greg LeMond

Highlights

He is a three time winner of the Tour de France; He was the 1989 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year

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Greg LeMond (born June 26, 1961 in Lakewood, California) is a former professional road bicycle racer from the United States and a three time winner of the Tour de France.

In 1986, LeMond became the first American cyclist to win the race. In 1987, he was shot and seriously injured in a hunting accident, taking two years to recover before returning to win the Tour again in 1989 and 1990, becoming one of only eight cyclists to have won the Tour three or more times.

Greg was a standout junior rider and quickly established himself as a phenomenal talent. Soon after his initial racing success, he began competing against older, more seasoned racers and gained the attention of the US national cycling team. Greg went on to win gold, silver and bronze medals at the 1979 Junior World Championships in Argentina and amazed spectators with his spectacular victory in the road race. He was named to the 1980 Olympic cycling team but was unable to compete due to the US boycott of the summer Moscow games. With the guidance of Cyrille Guimard he joined the European peloton. LeMond began racing professionally in 1981 with the Renault-Elf-Gitane team. He proved to be a forceful one-day rider with a silver medal at the 1982 World Cycling Championship and the first American to win a road cycling World Championship the following year. He soon began preparing for the more demanding Grand Tours.

LeMond rode his first Tour de France in 1984 and finished third, winning the prestigious White Jersey as the Tour's best young rider. In the 1985 Tour the managers of his La Vie Claire team ordered the 24-year-old LeMond to ride in support of his team captain Bernard Hinault who was leading the race and was suffering from injuries sustained in a crash caused by other riders, instead of riding to win the race. LeMond finished second, 1:42 behind Hinault, who was able to claim his fifth Tour victory. LeMond later asserted in an interview that the team management and his coach Paul Koechli had lied to him during a crucial stage, telling him that Hinault was close behind him when in fact Hinault lagged LeMond by over three minutes.

A year later in the 1986 Tour, Hinault and LeMond were co-leaders of the La Vie Claire team, with Hinault publicly promising to ride in support of LeMond in gratitude for LeMond's sacrifice in 1985. By stage 12, Hinault had built up a five-minute lead over LeMond, claiming he was trying to draw out Lemond's rivals, but he cracked in the mountains the next day and soon LeMond was in the lead. Although the two riders crested the Alpe d'Huez together to win the stage in a show of unity, it was clear that Hinault had been riding aggressively against his teammate. LeMond ultimately took the yellow jersey that year but felt betrayed by Hinault.

Disaster struck LeMond while turkey hunting in California, April 20, 1987, when his brother-in-law accidentally discharged his shotgun, striking LeMond in the back just over two months before the 1987 Tour de France was to begin. LeMond missed the following two Tours while recovering, also undergoing surgery for appendicitis and for tendinitis in his leg.

At the 1989 Tour de France, with 37 shotgun pellets remaining in his body (including some in the lining of his heart), LeMond was hoping only to finish in the top 20. Heading into the final stage, however, an individual time trial finishing in Paris, LeMond was in second place overall. He was 50 seconds behind Laurent Fignon, who had won the Tour in 1983 and 1984. LeMond rode the time trial using then-novel aero bars, which gave him a significant aerodynamic advantage, to beat Fignon by 58 seconds to claim his second yellow jersey with a final victory margin of 8 seconds ? the closest in the Tour's history. As LeMond danced in victory on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon sat and wept. Several days later, Fignon attributed his loss to saddle sores, which had hurt his performance. However, it was noted that Fignon had been overconfident on the last stages of the Tour, even congratulating LeMond on his second place, allowing LeMond to gain an advantage which proved decisive. LeMond's comeback was confirmed by winning his second World Cycling Championship road race several weeks later, beating Dimitri Konyshev and Seán Kelly in the final sprint. LeMond was named Sports Illustrated magazine's 1989 "Sportsman of the Year", the first cyclist ever to receive the honor.

LeMond won the Tour for the third time in 1990. This Tour saw a group including Claudio Chiappucci, then at the start of his racing career and relatively unknown, gain a lead of 10 minutes 35 seconds in the first stage of the race, which LeMond steadily chipped away through the mountain stages leaving Chiappucci with just a 5 second lead before the final individual time trial. LeMond placed 5th in the time trial, beating Chiappucci by over 2 minutes, and taking the lead of the race. He became one of the few cyclists to win the Tour without winning any of the individual stages.

In 1992, LeMond became the first American to win the Tour DuPont, a short-lived American answer to the Tour de France that took place from 1991 to 1996. Lemond won the prologue in record time and it was his first American win since the mid-1980s. The 1992 Tour DuPont victory was Greg LeMond's last major win of his career.

LeMond formally retired from racing in 1994, blaming mitochondrial myopathy for his deteriorating performance since 1990.

In a 1997 interview, LeMond openly rued his lost opportunities, noting that he had "given away" the 1985 Tour and missed it altogether in 1987 and 1988 after being shot. "Of course you can't rewrite racing history", he said, "but I'm confident that I would have won five Tours."

LeMond founded LeMond Bicycles in 1990, while he was still racing, but it faltered, something LeMond blames on "undercapitalization" and poor management by his father (a former real estate agent, ill equipped for running a bicycle company). In 1992, LeMond struck a deal with Trek in which they would license his name for bicycles they would build, distribute, and help design, but which would be sold under LeMond's name. This is often summarized as a sale to Trek, though in fact he still owns the company. 

Greg LeMond also founded LeMond Fitness. He pursued auto racing as a way to continue channeling his competitive drive. However, after several seasons he appears to have dropped that pursuit. In the 1990s he created a restaurant called Tour de France on France Avenue in one of the main retail districts of Edina, Minnesota. He currently lives in Medina, Minnesota, USA.

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