Greg LeMond

Bicycle Racer

• Born: June 26, 1961
• Place of Birth: Lakewood, California

SPORT: Cycling

Early Life

Gregory James LeMond was born in Lakewood, near Los Angeles, California, on June 26, 1961. At the age of seven, he moved to Lake Tahoe, California, and a few years later to Nevada, where his father began a real estate business.

One of three children, Greg grew up in an athletic family. Greg’s sister was a superior gymnast and his father was a serious senior amateur cyclist. Greg loved freestyle skiing. He practiced hard to improve his skills. He turned to cycling after learning that cycling was the best off-season training for skiing. A lack of snow in the 1975-1976 season kept Greg on wheels rather than on skis. He discovered he really liked cycling and began to race.

The Road to Excellence

Greg received instantaneous success in competitive cycling, winning the California Junior Championship in 1976his first year of competitionand the National Junior Championship in 1977.

Greg's family support was crucial to his success. The whole family attended his races. His mother provided him with special meals, his sister cheered him on, and his father often raced alongside him. At the age of fifteen, Greg mapped out his cycling career goals. Within several years he achieved all his objectives except for an Olympic victory. This opportunity was denied after the United States boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games.

Greg dropped out of high school to dedicate himself more fully to cycling. He later earned his degree through correspondence courses. In 1979, he realized his dream of winning the World Junior Championships in Argentina.

Successful cycling requires quality coaching, but there were few American coaches who were capable of helping Greg hone his impressive talents. Fortunately for Greg, he came under the wing of Eddie Borysewicz, a Polish coach who was crucial in providing him with a systematic training program.

The Emerging Champion

Greg set his sights on a professional career, but it proved a difficult road. As a young American, Greg was challenged to succeed in a sport traditionally dominated by Europeans.

In 1980while still an amateurGreg won the Circuit de la Sarthe race, the first time in history that an American had ever won a major stage race. He soon signed his first professional contract with French cycling team Renault after the team's coachCyrille Guimard Greg race.

Greg was a natural cyclist. He had enormous lung capacity that helped him perform magnificently in the mountains of the European circuit. He also had a physical frame that provided both strength and speed. However, he still had to mature—to learn more racing tactics and how to compete on the world-class circuit. In this arena, psychology and group strategy are as important as pure skill.

Greg’s first major international victory was the Coors Classic in 1981. Two years later, he won the World Road Championships Professional Road Race, the first American ever to do so. His string of outstanding performances the same year earned him the Super Prestige Pernod Trophy. In 1985, Greg finished second in the most important and grueling cycling event in the world, the Tour de France. With Greg’s assistance, teammate Bernard Hinault won the event.

Competitive cycling is a sport that demands a rare combination of individual excellence and teamwork. Greg, however, felt that he had not been given the chance for individual victory in the Tour de France. He vowed to win it the following year. In 1986, after a twenty-four-day, 2,500-mile race marred by savage competition with his own teammate, Hinault, Greg became the first American ever to win the Tour de France. Because of LeMond, the sport of cycling began to arouse the interest of the American public.

The bright picture changed in 1987. Greg’s cycling career appeared to be finished. He broke his wrist in an early season race, and then on April 20 he was nearly killed in a hunting accident. While on a turkey shoot in California, he was accidentally struck by sixty shotgun pellets that pierced his vital organs. Only rapid evacuation by a helicopter saved his life.

Continuing the Story

Greg’s recovery was complicated by an emergency appendectomy and other injuries. In 1988, while competing on the tour, he suffered the indignity of having to be pushed along by his teammates. However, Greg showed heart in one of the most spectacular comeback finishes in sporting history. In 1989, Greg won the Tour de France a second time. Entering the last stage, he was fifty seconds behind his main rival, Laurent Fignon, making it unlikely Greg could win. However, he roared into Paris at the unheard-of average speed of thirty-four miles per hour and won by only eight seconds, the narrowest winning margin in the race’s history. Greg went on to victory once again in the 1989 World Road Championships. In 1990, he won the Tour de France for the third time.

Though he made an astonishing recovery from the injuries sustained in 1987, Greg was never the same afterward. Following his third victory in the Tour de France, he struggled to maintain his form, winning only one race in 1992, the Tour du Pont. In 1994, Greg decided to retire after he was diagnosed with a rare muscular disease called mitochondrial myopathy.

LeMond remained the most accomplished American cyclist until the emergence of Lance Armstrong in the late 1990s. Armstronga cancer survivoreclipsed LeMond's number of Tour de France wins by garnering seven consecutive victories between 1999-2005. Armstrong was nonetheless persistently dogged by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use. In 2001, LeMond joined the criticism against Armstrong. Armstrong leveraged his standing in the sport against LeMond in retaliation, and a permanent rift developed between the two cyclists. LeMond would later allege that Armstrong sought to ruin his commercial relationship with Trex, a bicycle manufacturer and a sponsor of both riders. This case was litigated and settled out of court in 2010.

In 2013, LeMond was vindicated when Armstrong admitted to doping violations and his Tour de France victories were stripped. LeMond then reverted to being the only American with officially sanctioned Tour de France victories.

Following his cycling career, LeMond became a successful entrepreneur as a bicycle manufacturer, in real estate, and as a restaurant owner. In 2022, LeMond disclosed he was diagnosed with leukemia. The following year, LeMond stated he was mostly cured of the disease. In 2024, actor Ben Stiller announced that he was developing a biopic based on LeMond's life.

Summary

Greg LeMond’s stature as an all-time cycling great will never be in doubt. Because of Greg, American cyclists for the first time had to be taken seriously on the international scene. His career shows how important family support, individual dedication, and focused planning are to the realization of athletic goals. Moreover, Greg’s heroic surmounting of adversity is a magnificent inspiration for others who yearn for success in the face of long odds.

Bibliography

Abt, Samuel. Up the Road: Cycling’s Modern Era from LeMond to Armstrong. Boulder, VeloPress, 2005.

LeMond, Greg. Time Trials: My Life. London, Yellow Jersey, 2004.

Ling, Micah. "Hollywood's Ben Stiller Takes on New Challenge: Directing a Greg Lemond Biopic." Bicycling, 17 July 2024, www.bicycling.com/news/a61622855/ben-stiller-takes-on-new-challenge-directing-a-greg-lemond-biopic/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Long, Jonny. "Lance Armstrong Says He Didn’t Like the Greg LeMond Part of the ESPN Documentary." Cycling Weekly, www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/lance-armstrong-says-he-didnt-like-the-greg-lemond-part-of-the-espn-documentary-457012. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Morris, Clara, et al. "Threats, Doping, and the Legal System Fueled Lance Armstrong’s Beef with Greg LeMond." SBNation, 3 Mar. 2020, https://www.sbnation.com/videos/2020/3/3/21157766/lance-armstrong-greg-lemond-history-tour-de-france-rivalry-feud-beef-cycling-peds. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Startt, James. Tour de France, Tour de Force: A Visual History of the World’s Greatest Bicycle Race. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 2003.

Whittle, Jeremy. Le Tour: The History of the Tour de France. London: Collins, 2007.