Greg LeMond’s Stunning Tour de France Comeback

00:00:10
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American People.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: In July of 1986, Greg.

00:00:20
Speaker 1: Lahman stunned the sporting world by becoming the first American to win the Tour de France, the world’s preeminent bicycle race, arguably the most grueling athletic contest in the world. After his comeback victory in 1989, Lahman’s celebrity reached heights no one thought possible for a cyclist. He made the cover of Sports Illustrated and was named their Sportsman of the Year, a first for any cyclist. Let’s take a listen to the story, starting with the man himself, Greg Lehman.

00:00:53
Speaker 3: Our backyard was like the Alps. I was wild and into the while. When I was eight years old, I discovered hiking, fishing, downhill skiing. Coaches said, you know, the best thing for skiing is cycling. I got to get a bike. Cycling was a counterculture sport. I kind of tend to not do what everybody else is doing. My dad bought one too, so we started riding together. There was magic to riding. Even by the end of August. We did a 100K ride, and my dad and I got to talk and we were like best friends, like teammates.

00:01:41
Speaker 4: His early career promised greatness. Here’s Greg and his father, Bob.

00:01:46
Speaker 5: I had a 1976 Volkswagen van. We leave for the Bay Area of Southern California and race. They were amateur races, but Greg was doing very well.

00:01:56
Speaker 3: I won my 11 races, and I’m my board sixteen seventy years all. I went to Europe by myself for two months with 75 bucks in my pocket. Everybody had this mentality that Europeans are unbeatable. They’re mythical. Actually, they’re like they’re from another planet. I’m thinking those Tour France winners have to start somewhere, just like me. Two races switch on. Two races in France, I won him, went to Belgium, won six out of eight. That’s when I wrote my four goals out.

00:02:27
Speaker 5: And this is written in October of 1978, which would have made him seventeen. Cycling goals: ’79: Win the Junior World Championship road race, which he did. ’80: Win the Olympic road race, not possible because of the boycott. By age twenty-two, win Pro World Championships road race. Age twenty-five, win the Tour de France.

00:02:55
Speaker 6: Quota Broncs at the enormous crowd on. I’ll do it now, I’d.

00:02:59
Speaker 7: Still a great club, follows the wheel of his teammates Ben Artino.

00:03:04
Speaker 3: There’s something magic about the Tour. People talk about the Olympics, I go, “that’s nothing compared to the Tour as an event.”

00:03:12
Speaker 7: The two riders who have projected themselves without a shadow of the doubt, as the two greatest riders in.

00:03:17
Speaker 8: This year’s order France.

00:03:19
Speaker 3: It’s a Formula One Grand Prix, New York City Marathon, but doing that for 21 days and with fifteen.

00:03:26
Speaker 8: Million people. We’ve got Americans going to possibly win the Yellow Jersey for the first time.

00:03:31
Speaker 7: All little bit a toord of France in the greatest tradition of the event.

00:03:34
Speaker 6: Before these days it’s gone.

00:03:36
Speaker 4: It was the 1985 Tour de France Cycling Super Bowl, where 200 riders covered 2,200 miles in 3 weeks, that established Greg’s legendary career.

00:03:48
Speaker 6: Phil, we have a chance to superhaps an American winner here in Greg Lamont.

00:03:52
Speaker 7: Absolutely, John, and really for the first time Greg LeMond is now ready to win the Toad of France and add a little bit more history to this great sporting event. Of course, his adversary is his own TEAMMATEO, and he’s the man that Lemon may well have to beat to get that final Yellow Jersey. When the race ends in Paris.

00:04:09
Speaker 9: You’ve got 22 teams. You’re with 9 men on the squad. The unique character who wins the Tour de France has just about everything. It’s very unlikely to be more than five guys with this unique ability. You’ve got to be able to climb mountains, you’ve got to be able to show the descending skills at 100 kilometers an hour, and above all, you’ve got to ride the individual time trials. We always call it the race of truth. It’s you against the watch. And there aren’t many writers got all that ability. So what they do is they choose a leader who they think have that ability, put him in as the leader of the team, and then the others are called the kitchen help. We call them domestiques. They’ll come round you like a queen bee. Their job is to make sure their leader is in exactly the position when it matters to win the race, because they know he can do it and they can’t.

00:04:58
Speaker 4: The story in one paragraph goes like this. Greg’s French teammate, Bernardino, known as the Badger, had won four Tour de Frances and nearing the end of his career, wanted a fifth to equal the Tour record. The young Lamand was stronger up front.

00:05:16
Speaker 7: The argument goes on, the Mond rebelled against the team’s instructions. He angrily attempts to persuade his coat he should be given the chance to win the all.

00:05:25
Speaker 4: But under pressure from his team and coach, he agreed to support Eno rather than take his first victory.

00:05:31
Speaker 6: Bernardino: five Tour wins. The American story, of course, another historic one for Greg Lamont from Roschall County, Nevada, a kiss from his wife Kathy.

00:05:41
Speaker 4: In return, Eno promised to help Lamond win the Tour de France the following year.

00:05:46
Speaker 3: You know, it’s like, “Oh, no, another repeat!”

00:05:48
Speaker 4: But the Badger renegged on his promise.

00:05:51
Speaker 7: But everybody feels hiding something and.

00:05:54
Speaker 4: Repeatedly attacked Lamont during the race and attempts to win again.

00:05:58
Speaker 7: Laman knows now that he must take got bern Argido, a Machi specialty, but he fell, as simply proved it felt to be just too stop for the bad jet.

00:06:10
Speaker 4: Greg’s first Port of France win was achieved not only without the support of his coach and team, but also in the face of what many fans believed was outright hostility. It was a cowboy, reckless and individualistic and raging against the establishments wed an hour, but it was the right move and a righteous victory.

00:06:35
Speaker 1: And you’ve been listening to Greg Leman and to his father tell the story of his remarkable life.

00:06:43
Speaker 2: I loved what he said.

00:06:44
Speaker 1: Our backyard was like the Alps, hiking, fishing, skiing. He grew up in the mountainsides of Nevada, and by the way, cycling at the time was a complete countercultural sport. And the dad brought him into it and did it with him, father and son competing. And those four goals of a 17-year-old, my goodness, with the last one being the winning of the Tour de France. When we come back, more of the story of Greg Lemon here on Our American Stories. Leah Abib here, and I’m inviting you to help Our American Stories celebrate this country’s 250th birthday only a short time away. If you want to help inspire countless others to love America like we do, and want to help us bring the inspiring and important stories told ear to millions for years to come, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Our American Stories. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot; any amount helps. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give, and we continue with Our American Stories and the story of Greg Lamond.

00:08:14
Speaker 2: Let’s pick up where we last left.

00:08:16
Speaker 4: Off, because the race appeared at length on U.S. television. America responded. Here’s Greg’s father, Bob.

00:08:29
Speaker 5: We got a telegram from Roma Reagan, the president, and a letter from him, and Greg was invited to the White House.

00:08:36
Speaker 2: So it’s pretty big in that sense.

00:08:39
Speaker 8: He was really landmark in the history of the Tour, an American winning the Tour because afterwards it brought more and more English speakers into the sport of sunking and lansanstrong. You know, God bless him, wouldn’t have existed without Greg Lemon because all of a sudden defect that Gregormund won the Tour. The word audience of the Tour changed completely.

00:09:00
Speaker 4: We are choosing to celebrate this day by looking back at the greatest year and the Tour de France’s 100-plus year history and the American man that made.

00:09:09
Speaker 7: It so, and nowest moment for Greg Lamont. His name in ren means the world, and this is the world of breg Lamont in Parish today. The first American ever to pull on a winner’s a yellow jerney in the Torda bron.

00:09:24
Speaker 4: But less than a year after Greg’s first Tour de France victory, this happened.

00:09:29
Speaker 3: There’s turkey hunting in the United States, and turkey hunting is the spring season. I just backed into berry bushes. I was sitting there and I wanted to look and see where everybody was. And when I stood up, my brother-in-law happened to be up behind it. So he shot at the first thing that moved, and that was me.

00:09:49
Speaker 2: The crazy thing…

00:09:50
Speaker 4: It didn’t hurt.

00:09:51
Speaker 3: I didn’t know it, but my uncle said I had a stream of blood from my neck, just pulsating out, a steady beat.

00:10:02
Speaker 5: They called a helicopter and the helicopter pilot ended up taking into UC Davis Medical Center.

00:10:09
Speaker 3: He saved my life. If I would have had to go by ambulance, that’d have been dead. I had pellets, about 50 of them, and probably twenty I went right through me, and I still have 35 in me, you know, two of my heart, three of.

00:10:22
Speaker 2: My liver, and there’s no way they can remove them. No have chronic lead poison. It bothers me.

00:10:29
Speaker 3: So the more I ride now at this stage.

00:10:31
Speaker 2: The worse they get.

00:10:33
Speaker 4: Greg took what should have been a career-ending 2 years off from cycling.

00:10:38
Speaker 3: After two years of absolute hell. I went in the Tour an underdog. Everybody wrote me off. I was racing against a very strong Finion who won two Tour Frances before that.

00:10:50
Speaker 9: Gregor win the stage final and win the stage. Gregor tate yellow finel and take yellow.

00:10:56
Speaker 10: It was just every day.

00:10:57
Speaker 9: It was a great story. And then we got to about four days ago, and Finnon was now 50 seconds ahead of Greg Lamont.

00:11:07
Speaker 3: Day before the final race, he tapped me on the shoulders and he, “Congratulations on your second place!” Now he and I were teammates and the same coach, and that coach told us and taught me the race is never over to the finish line, no matter what, it’s never over to the finish line.

00:11:23
Speaker 2: You’d never take it for granted.

00:11:25
Speaker 3: And when he did that, I said, “Oh, you’ve lost the race!”

00:11:28
Speaker 10: At the beginning.

00:11:29
Speaker 7: It’s advantage Finnon. He will start last, wearing the leader’s Yellow Jersey. He chases Lamond along the course 2 minutes back. He’ll know all the way exactly what time Greg Lamond is doing.

00:11:38
Speaker 2: I probably shouldn’t say this.

00:11:40
Speaker 11: You wrote your story and you want to turn it in quickly and then get out of there.

00:11:45
Speaker 1: A river there that the I now moved on the right shoulder, so I wrote my story.

00:11:52
Speaker 11: You know, Laurent Fignon withstood challenge like Greg Lamont.

00:12:01
Speaker 9: You can almost see the difference in the screenful.

00:12:02
Speaker 8: It’s incredible to watch a month of, “what do you think that that he managed to finished back from that to shooting accident?”

00:12:11
Speaker 11: He was Fenale coming up shops in the A, everybody screaming, and he realized some point before he made the turn he had lost the second, twelve fifty.

00:12:26
Speaker 8: The most incredible thing I think about the day of my life, twenty fifty Blake.

00:12:33
Speaker 4: It was this universal cry of.

00:12:38
Speaker 1: The crowd had realized it.

00:12:40
Speaker 7: The Lord of Yon has got a lord of wrong.

00:12:43
Speaker 12: Like a.

00:12:47
Speaker 11: He was… this great story dropped in our laps, and all anybody could think of was, “I’m not going home!”

00:12:55
Speaker 3: I never knew it affect him so much, and I’ve learned stuff since then. In the 20-plus years after that, he’d never gone to the chams of these.

00:13:04
Speaker 2: In his mind, he would be.

00:13:05
Speaker 3: Walking to get the mail and he’d count on thousand and one thousand and two thousand, eight seconds. I lost by eight seconds.

00:13:13
Speaker 2: I just said eight.

00:13:14
Speaker 3: Gore On, you won two. Now I’ve won two, and we can see next year he’ll get third.

00:13:19
Speaker 4: In 1990 Lamond won his third Tour de France. He looked certain to equal the Badger’s record of five wins, but the sport of cycling was about to change traumatically.

00:13:33
Speaker 3: Lamon in 30 minutes behind the leaders, he quits the race right there. By 1992 is when I really became aware of it. Some of the rioters looked like it was just a natural progression, where they explained it by weight loss. Got you look back at it and it is all lies.

00:13:51
Speaker 4: Here’s Greg’s teammate Andy Hampston.

00:13:55
Speaker 3: I saw EPO come in.

00:13:58
Speaker 12: It made phenomenal fological changes, could increase blood levels by 20 percent. I watched individuals and then groups of individuals and entire teams mop the floor with me and everyone else who I knew wasn’t doping.

00:14:14
Speaker 4: Here’s Greg on Lance Armstrong now loses.

00:14:17
Speaker 10: It’s a Lance Armstrong here by seven. History’s almost repeted. Absolutely remarkable. But look at the face on Armstrong there. He’s come here on a mission.

00:14:26
Speaker 6: He won.

00:14:26
Speaker 3: I bought into a story, too, with NTS coming back. He had seven victories flightdlmentous one one, so there are 8 American victories.

00:14:37
Speaker 10: Landis gets on his bike like he’s about to deliver the newspaper.

00:14:41
Speaker 3: It was pretty impressive streak there for Americas, but it wasn’t real.

00:14:46
Speaker 2: That’s a sad part.

00:14:47
Speaker 10: His fairy tale just goes on and on.

00:14:50
Speaker 3: He’s got the support of the cancer community, the sponsors, fanatic fans, and I knew it could be suicide. Whatever I said, I don’t know who I said, but I said, “It’s unbelievable.” That’s all I said.

00:15:04
Speaker 2: It’s unbelievable.

00:15:06
Speaker 3: Unbelieve bull.

00:15:12
Speaker 4: Leman’s most notorious remark was, “If Lance is clean, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sports. If he isn’t, it would be the greatest fraud.” His funniest: “With the drugs they have these days, one could convert a mule into a stallion.” Greg LeMond is now the only American winner of the Tour de France. A lot of cyclists and Americans thought Greg Lamond was jealous of Armstrong. We now know better. Armstrong has been stripped of his Tour victories. This has given many all over the world an even deeper appreciation for what the only American winner of the Tour de France accomplished.

00:16:00
Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And I’ll remember that day. I had quite a number of friends who just were gripped to this idea that American could win the Tour de France. And there it was on television for the nation to watch. July 27th, 1986. First American to ever win perhaps the toughest event, the toughest task.

00:16:25
Speaker 2: In sporting history.

00:16:27
Speaker 1: He wins the Tour de France and in the end opens up for generations of cyclists, generations of American cyclists, the idea.

00:16:37
Speaker 2: Of winning and competing on the global stage.

00:16:41
Speaker 1: And then came that tragic accident, just a freak accident, hunting, backing into some berry bushes and his brother accidentally shooting him. 50 pellets scattered through his body, and he would have been dead if he’d been taken to a hospital by ambulance.

00:16:59
Speaker 2: Luckily he was metav active chopper.

00:17:02
Speaker 1: And it would be 2 years before what would become one of sports’ great comebacks, and he was to win a second and then a third Tour de France. And then the final chapter of the story, that Lance Armstrong’s string of victories, which had Lehmand skeptical not just of Armstrong’s feats, but of what he was seeing is a massive change in the physiology of many of the athletes, which of course was explained by the massive doping occurring across the sport. The story of Greg LeMond, the story of triumph, perseverance, and in the end overcoming here on Our American Stories.