By 1989, I'd become extremely fat and unhealthy, barely able to walk up even a single flight of stairs. In the 3 years since graduating, I'd gone from being a skinny student (6'1", 10 st 10 lbs) to an obese (16 st 5 lbs) , stressed-out office worker. I was heading for an early grave. And then, Greg Lemond got me back into cycling...!
I came back from work one evening in early July, 1989 and stuck the TV on. The Tour de France coverage was on Channel 4. I was smitten.
I was inspired by Lemond's titanic struggle with Fignon and thrilled by the final time trial. I went out and put a bike a few weeks later. I thank Greg Lemond for that.
I've just watched that tour again on a DVD passed to me through the CycleChat 'library' and it struck me how hard the efforts made by the riders on the climbs were. They looked like they were being tortured, grimacing and pouring sweat. None of the kind of crap we've come to know through Ricco et al who charge up steep climbs as though they were flat, and hop off their bikes at the top as if they've just been for a ride in the park with their kids.
I'm sure that Lemond was riding clean, and damn sure that most of the Tour winners since him weren't.
Lemond struggled with the 1990 tour and then his career went into a nosedive. I remember it being blamed on ill health due to the lead pellets still in his body after his near-fatal hunting accident, but the same thing was happening to other great riders like Andy Hampsten. In hindsight, you can see the rise of EPO abuse in the peloton - just watch the old TDF coverage and watch the riders on the tough climbs, and observe how things changed in the early 90s.
Sure, Lemond is angry about what happened in the sport, but with good reason. I think that he genuinely wants a clean sport and I don't think that what he says is just 'sour grapes'.
There is so much money at stake, and doping is so much part of the sport that I despair at the problem ever going away but perhaps the scale of it can be reduced. I think people like Lemond who are not willing to just keep quiet are part of the solution.
