Interview on Vélo 101

Greg and Geoffrey LeMond are interviewed by the french Vélo 101. They are spending a month in Europe now, riding in the Alps, and doing l'Etape du Tour next Monday (July 16).

Nice reading... I may translate a bit more when I have time (or if there are requests...). Greg indicates that he only wants to finish l'Etape du Tour, and that he didn't lose enough weight yet to do more (10 kg so far... ). He's training seriously since last January. His son Geoffrey is riding since March 2006, but not decided to get pro... with worries about doping: "Now is not the right era to become pro", to which Greg adds: "Even if he could become pro, I wouldn't want it".

To the question: "Did you ever dream that your children become pro?",
Greg answers: "No, the life as a pro is difficult. Mainly since the 1990's.. those years have destroyed for me the possibility for my kids to do pro racing. There is so much difference between over-programmed riders and natural ones."

Geoffrey is asked about his memories about his father racing:
"I remember a lot. In 1989 (he was 5), I was walking along the Champs-Elysees with my grandfather. I think that even if my parents were trying to just distract me during the Tour, I was following well what was going on in the race. On the Champs-Elysees, I remember giant champagne bottles with Laurent Fignon's face on them. During the final TT, I was watching my dad. He won, and some people took me, policemen, they carried me towards journalists, then to my mom, and then only I got with dad. It's something really memorable. It was a bit risky, I was a bit afraid with all the fuss."


I can't help but put the pictures here:













A next part of the interview will be published on Monday, where LeMond will talk about Armstrong and Landis.

A bad joke?

Landis' tour to promote his book "Positively False" made him appear on NPR, and in this Q&A, he is asked whether or not he knew about his manager's plan to "blackmail" Greg LeMond. Landis answers that he wouldn't characterize Geoghegan's call as blackmail... and that all it was was a bad joke, and that LeMond shouldn't have come to the hearing and had nothing to do there, and that the whole situation should have been avoided, but that there was nothing he (Floyd) could have done about it.

The moderator insists that if it was indeed a bad joke, it was one of horrible taste. Couldn't agree more on that...

And nothing he could have done about it? How about that post on the Daily Peloton Forum? Landis didn't have only a passive attitude in this... He started it, he called Greg, he wrote that post... How about apologizing publicly on that forum for the threatening post, taking it back, explaining LeMond's secret wasn't something damaging for his character at all and was something of private order that he shouldn't have mention?

Nope... really nothing he could have done. Just wear a black suit...

In another Q&A session, when asked about Greg, Landis answers:

"Greg LeMond needs help," Landis said. "That's really all there is to say about that. He had no reason to be at that hearing. He added nothing to the case from either side. All he did was distract from the facts of the case."

How nice of him to be concerned about Greg! Just a bad joke... and Greg is messed up so all he says is worthless...

How can you say publicly about someone you hardly know that he "needs help"? How depreciating and condescendent is that? Belittle those who oppose to you is the attitude of a coward.



On a totally different note, and in french: Greg's going to be the "legend of the Tour" portrayed today on the french channel France 2, in the pre-show before the live broadcasting of the stage.

Greg sera la légende du Tour évoquée aujourd'hui sur France 2 par Jean-Paul Ollivier. Diffusion entre 13h50 et 14h30.

Légendes du Tour sur Eurosport

Greg LeMond est la légende du Tour du jour sur le site de TF1/Eurosport.
Un portrait sans surprise... qui rappelle l'originalité de Greg, et choisit cette photo, l'une de mes favorites :

The Tour started...

PezCycling has Greg's views on the first week of the Tour de France. After all the agitation with the Landis arbitration, I like to hear Greg talking about plain cycling... to see he is still passionate about the Tour.

It was planned that he would go with his son Geoffrey at l'Etape du Tour on July 16th, I'm waiting for news about it...

Otherwise in the news, many articles talking about the Tour and doping mention Greg and the Landis affair, as well as reminding Greg's accusations about Lance. Paul Kimmage has a new article about the start of the Tour de France in London, and the history of doping since the 1990's:

zero tolerance is the only way forward. There is just one question. Why didn’t this happen when riders were dying from conditions brought on by their drug abuse in the 1990s? Why has it taken until the sport is on its knees?

Kimmage also recalls Greg's quote from last week "Big Interview":

“This sport needs to bleed to death before it can rebuild”

Why has it gone so far?

Where I stand

LeMond bashers are all really loud out here on the internet, and I doubt big time that they are really more numerous than LeMond admirers... just... louder and more eager to babble the same arguments against him over and over again.

First I got really annoyed with this bashing, but now it just makes me roll my eyes, and recent developments in the cycling world are making me really proud to be a LeMond fan.

I'm french and discovered cycling thanks to Greg. I got dragged by my mom when I was 13 to go see the arrival of the time trial of the Tour de France in 1989 in my hometown of Rennes. It was raining heavily, I got squeezed painfully against barriers, and yet I got hooked. The sound of the wheels on the cobblestones, the incredible pace of each rider arriving, it all just felt fascinating. And then in the far, there was this guy standing on the podium with a yellow jersey and a flashy pink cap. I loved the colours...

After more smashing in the crowd and fighting to get out of the fuss, my mom and I got stuck close to a stage where the post-race show "A chacun son tour" was filmed. And on that stage, a few meters away from me, the guy with the yellow jersey and the pink cap was being interviewed. His adorable accent while speaking french amused me, and he was telling he wanted to thank his wife for this victory and that he was happier than when we won the Tour in 1986.

Faint memories of an American winning the Tour a few years before came back to my mind... I also remembered the news of that American rider getting injured and not able to defend his title. But all was really blurry on my mind.

In the next few days, I didn't miss any broadcasting of the Tour stages. I got totally appealed to the story of this guy who seems so happy to just be on his bike, always smiling, nice with journalists and making funny comments. I must also acknowledge that teen me found him really handsome.

The Tour 1989 was a pure delight to follow. And the final time trial was the most exciting sport event I ever saw in my life. Being a Greg LeMond fan on July 23rd, 1989 was a blessing. As we say in french: "Le pied total"!

I followed the next Tours and other important races that were shown on TV with great thrill. I gathered all press articles about Greg I could find. I cried when he announced his retirement in 1994. And I grew up, and forgot about the Tour, forgot about Greg...

Until 2001. At that time, I knew Lance Armstrong was the new champion. I found his story also quite interesting... I had quite a bit of admiration for the guy. I watched the Tour sporadically, with a bit of nostalgia, remembering the excitement it gave me at the end of my childhood. But somehow, nothing felt really appealing. Those guys look too much like robots. None of them were answering interviews in french with cute accents anymore... None of them looked like smiling kids happy to ride a bike.

And then came the LeMond controversy. And as many, I first wondered. I didn't like what I was hearing. I didn't want to think about doping. During all my former LeMond fan years, I was shrugging at and pushing away all the doping insinuations. My Greg was clean. The full peloton was clean. These guys were heroes.

And I didn't like to hear the guy I remembered as "utterly nice Greg" critizing someone. And I wondered. Is he jealous of Lance? I needed to know more.

In my pile of old articles from the 1990's, I found back one article where
Greg was mentioning Dr Ferrari and the danger that this man was going to be for the future of cycling. I wasn't convinced, but I started to get big doubts about what cycling had become.

I kept on following cycling from far, as well as what Greg was saying about it... I got back a bit of interest. I replayed my tapes of the Tours 1989 to 1992. I still loved what I was watching.

And then came 2004 and the Simeoni episode. All my admiration for Lance disappeared instantly. That guy appeared to me as a brute, a man ready to all to win and make others shut up.

I'm now thinking Armstrong is a cheat, and one of the godfathers of the mafia system that cycling has become. I think he is threatening people opposing him. I think the money involved around him and his image as a hero will probably protect him for the rest of his life.

Notice that I said "I'm thinking". Not "I'm convinced". Not need to scream at me... If you have arguments to convince me I'm wrong, my ears are wide open.

And I won't yell at people who say LeMond is a bitter old champion full of sour grapes. If that's your opinion, then try to convince me that you're right. Without reharshing the same false arguments (for instance the usual "LeMond must have doped, he held the record for the fastest time trial in the Tour for 15 years"). I won't ban negative comments about Greg here. Express yourself!

The recent event, the USADA vs. Landis arbitration, LeMond's revelations of his very painful childhood, his courage in testifying and coming out, have increased my admiration for the man big time.

Greg LeMond, the nice, polite, smiling young rider, turned into a tall man of high standards, honesty and coherence. A true human being. Let me say it once again, I'm proud to be a LeMond fan.

The Big Interview

If you're interested in Greg LeMond, you already know that the big recent news about Greg is the interview he did with Paul Kimmage.

Though it's an interesting reading, where we can learn more about the timing, circumstances and consequences of Greg's sexual abuse, the full article is quite frustrating, blurry in its chronology, and giving the idea that Paul Kimmage is interrupting Greg. I'd rather have had more direct quotes from Greg.

It's a shock to realize that Greg was hiding such a dark secret for several decades. When the news came out during the USADA vs. Landis arbitration, I didn't expect that he told his family so recently only. It's impossible to imagine what he's been through all these years. Behind his huge smile on podiums, he was hiding a big load of fear and shame... and was carrying this all alone.

I wanted to be seen as a good person,” LeMond says, “and never wanted to let people down, but I found it hard to handle the fame or adulation. I didn’t feel worthy of it. I was ashamed by who I thought I was because I felt partly responsible [for the abuse] and I was never able to enjoy the stuff I should have been able to enjoy. My first thought when I won the Tour was: ‘My God, I’m going to be famous’, and then I thought, ‘He’s going to call’. I was always waiting for that phone call. I lived in fear that anyone would ever find out.

The statistics about coming out about abuse are terrifying. The average time span between the abuse and talking is 17 years... It's considered that about 85% of men who were abused never come out. That says quite a lot about the amount of shame victims are carrying. I hope that Greg's admission will help other people.

I find the link that Kathy LeMond makes between her husband's past and his view on doping convincing and quite fascinating:

We’ve done a lot of talking about this,” Kathy says. “Why wouldn’t Greg have gone to [Dr X]? Why not? I think Greg was carrying such a load of shame that, like he said, he couldn’t have survived a positive drug test, he probably couldn’t. He had to have something to hold on to that was pure and good about himself, and cycling was that.

It's a bit like hearing Greg say: "I rode clean, but I didn't have any merit, I couldn't do otherwise".
I think Greg's always shown understanding and compassion for riders who admitted to doping. I never heard him sounding judgemental. Pointing his finger to the system and the corruption, to the unethical doctors, but not to the riders (except one of them maybe...). I really don't think he is putting himself on a pedestal above other riders.

Finally, I'm not so happy to see Greg bitter about Landis, and wanting him punished for the infamous call, while it's not clear FL had actually anything to do with the call. But Landis' post on the Daily Peloton Forum was pretty clear and threatening, and I guess enough to trigger Greg's anger. Greg mentions having dealt with a lot of therapy about it, probably to accept that there was nothing to be ashamed of, to realize no one could judge him for that, or use it against him... Landis' post asserting he knew something about Greg that could "severely damage his character", and the threatening phone call by Geoghegan, must have felt pretty destroying. The interview with Kimmage shows that it was far from an easy task for Greg to come testifying.

On another note, Greg was interviewed on Open Source Radio not long ago, talks about doping, and about the recent admissions by Zabel and Riis, and you can see here once again that Greg seems to strongly believe in "The Truth will set you free". He's on from 25'23'' on.

Little introduction

I'm a big Greg LeMond fan, and I felt that this world was lacking a little shrine to the man. So I'm opening this blog, where I'll post recent news about Greg, old and new pictures, recollections of his great times on a bike, archived articles, quotes... anything concerning Greg.

Feel free to comment, whether you love or hate the man. I love and admire him, and I'm eager to share this admiration with anyone. I am well aware that Greg LeMond is also a man of controversy, and I won't turn my eyes on that. I'm eager to share argumentations...

English is not my native language, so be ready for some uneven cobblestones along the way.

The title of this blog is a quote by Greg, from his book "Complete's Book of Bicycling". He probably knows what he is talking about...

Enjoy the ride!