Home » Top Stories » Road » » Tour de France

A conversation with Greg LeMond at the Tour on Sunday.

Published: Jul. 6, 2008
Greg LeMond at the Tour on Sunday.
Greg LeMond at the Tour on Sunday.
Photo: Andrew Hood

American legend Greg LeMond believes there have been enough positive changes in cycling that he can believe in the winner of the Tour de France.

LeMond, 47, returned to the Tour this week for the first since the late 1990s, when he become so disillusioned with cycling’s doping problems that he refused to even attend the race that he won three times.

LeMond is optimistic that increased anti-doping controls and changes within the culture of the peloton can deliver a clean winner of the Tour. VeloNews was there when LeMond spoke with journalists Sunday morning in the start village.

VeloNews: Can you believe in cycling again?

Greg LeMond: Yes, that’s why I am here. Eric Boyer invited me because I am part of this new (team’s) group. I came back to the Tour last year for one day because my son got me back into cycling. I’m excited. I’m the most optimistic about cycling since probably when I turned pro.

VN: What prompted you to return to the Tour?

GL: I came to the Tour to talk to Christian Prudhomme and Patrice Clerc to give in my two cents' worth about how I would change the sport. I think they’re the doing the right things. I hope they have the conviction to stay on the route they are, because there will be tremendous pressure from the IOC, the UCI, and there will be lawsuits, but if you look at the economic impact that doping’s had on the sport, you can make it up with a strong anti-doping program. I missed the Tour for many years. I was in Briancon last year for only a couple of hours. My wife and kids watched it, but I had hard a time watching the Tour for a couple years.

VN: Can you be confident in a winner of this Tour?

GL: Yes, because they’re finally making changes. Look at Taylor Phinney, he only just started racing and two years later he won the junior world championship. I recently read an interview with Davis [Phinney] and he thought that Taylor could become a good classics rider. I say, screw that! He’s winning pursuit and time trial events against guys who are 10 years older than he is. That’s what I was doing. I won the Circuit de la Sarthe at 18 against professionals. Your genetic potential does not change in your career. It’s there at 17, 18 – the only thing that changes when you race professionally 100 days a year is that you’re trying to figure out how to be at your peak. My ability didn’t change from when I was 18 or 19. I was third in the Dauphiné my first year. So you can see that quality in a rider like Cadel [Evans] when he made that transition from mountain biking. It is very difficult, and it has been the last 15 years, to see who is really good. Christophe Bassons might have been the best rider in the Tour. We don’t know. We look at history, we have 100 years of cycling, [Eddy] Merckx didn’t come out of thin air and win the Tour at 28 years old. He was good at 19, 20; Fignon, myself. All these new training programs, oh, I lost some weight, higher RPMs, how can you can lose more weight than 3-4 percent body weight? All these training theories – physiology has not changed.

VN: Have you returned because of changes in the sport?

GL: I can believe in cycling that is going to change in a very positive way. The sport needed what’s happened to it. It didn’t change after Festina, and it didn’t change after [Operación] Puerto, or [Floyd] Landis. It needed (what happened) last year, because all of a sudden, there was a crisis. The pressure of sponsors pulling out – then it had to change. I’ve been pushing for an independent anti-doping agency, not associated with the Tour, not the UCI. The anti-doping control people need to be completely independent. They shouldn’t care if cycling is destroyed by a positive.

Related Video: VeloNews.tv

We have to make sure that the tests are fair. We have to go forward. The biological passport looks at the chemistry of the body, but we also need to be doing testing on wattage and VO2 max, but it all comes down to genetics. When you dope, you can change your oxygen intake by 15 to 25 percent, so by the end of the Tour, you can see a 35 to 40 percent increase in power output. Even if you’re the hardest-working person, you cannot do it. We have to get back to a point where talent alone can win the Tour de France. Someone is going to win this Tour, but it might go 5km slower, it would probably be more dramatic.

VN: Do you think there was something the UCI could have done to stop the doping back in the late 1990s after the Festina affair?

GL: Festina, what did it change, nothing? It was all talk, all PR. I was here in ’98, and I was like, good, finally! At least now they’re going to do something about it. They didn’t change a thing. When you have the UCI president, Hein Verbruggen, when a rider died of a heart attack and the sport director of his team went to Verbruggen and said, ‘We have to look ourselves in the mirror and change, or we’ll all be dead when we’re 50.’ And when Verbruggen’s response was, ‘If you don’t like the sport, get the hell out.’ That’s a strong sign of what his priorities are. They’d threaten riders if they talked about doping.

VN: What do you think about Valverde in the yellow jersey?

GL: I don’t know what to say. Operación Puerto, I don’t know enough about his history. It’s almost impossible to say. A victory in the first stage means almost nothing – it’s going to be in the time trial and it’s going to be in the mountains that will decide. It will be fun. I always love the first time trial. You’ll see the winner there.

VN: How do you rate the chances of Evans?

GL: He’s my favorite. He’s been so consistent and with the elimination of a few others, my favorite is Cadel Evans. He been very good but not quite near the top, but now that some of the riders have been eliminated, he should win. Maybe [Jan] Ullrich was the strongest rider of his generation; you just don’t know who are the best riders these days. Everybody believes if they’re all doping, it’s the same, but not all doctors are created equally. The real good thing about this Tour is that there is no team that’s strongly dominant. You have to be able to lose the Tour. It’s possible to win the Tour without being the strongest. Cadel has been very consistent. He was very good in mountain biking and made a very good transition from mountain biking to road racing. He came into the sport when there were a lot of problems, but now the sport has cleaned up and he’s good at the right time. That cream rises to the top. He’s been there, been there. We’ll see some of the riders who might not be winning like they were before.

VN: How has the Tour changed from when you were racing?

GL: I don’t know if it’s that much different. It’s a lot easier to watch it, with live TV and live updates on the Internet. Everyone says it changes a lot, but after 14 years as a pro, I didn’t see it change that much. There’s one year with more spectators, one year with more journalists, but it comes down to one rider winning the race. You have three weeks. I thought I was going to win the Tour in 1991, after I felt the best ever since 1986, and I could barely finish seventh place. It’s a long race.

VN: You were on the last Belgian team to win the Tour (ADR) and José de Cauwer will be trying to win with Silence-Lotto. What do you remember of him?

GL: He’s a great director and he’s kind of like [Cyrille] Guimard. He’s very good psychologically for a rider and he’s very good tactically. He helped me in 1989. There were times I just didn’t want to race anymore. He just kept me motivated, he said, ‘It will come, it will come.’ I have very fond memories and I would love to have had him for a director more years than one. In fact, it was one of the best years of my career, because when you get paid by a sponsor, you feel more pressure. I had that when I was paid a lot of money and I felt responsible to perform, and when I wasn’t performing, it killed me psychologically. I felt that obligation to the sponsor. In '89, I didn’t get paid a dime. I said, 'Screw it, I’ll just race for fun.' That took the pressure off me. It was a great relief.