Three days after he became the first American to earn a world pro road championship medal, the silver, at Goodwood, England, in September 1982, Greg LeMond began the Tour de l’Avenir (Tour of the Future) as the hot favorite. Then 21, LeMond was hungry to win a big European race, not least because he was about to renegotiate his contract with Cyrille Guimard’s Renault-Gitane team.

LeMond had already established himself as a budding stage-race rider by winning Colorado’s 1981 Coors Classic in his rookie year, then following up with a string of excellent finishes in early 1982 (second at the Mediterranean Tour, third at the Tour of Corsica and third at Tirreno-Adriatico). Insiders were already speculating what he might do at the Tour de France. The Tour de l’ Avenir — the 10-day stage race then contested by top amateurs and young pros — carries much prestige because it is put on by the Tour de France organization.

The 1982 edition gave insiders a first look at what LeMond might be able to achieve at the Tour in a race that was truly mountainous, especially against high-quality competition. The race was a match-up between the world’s best national teams (led by East Germany, Colombia and the Soviet Union) and the hottest young pros (including LeMond of Renault-Gitane, Scotsman Robert Millar of Peugeot and defending champion Pascal Simon of France).

For the Soviet-bloc countries, this was their Tour de France and one of their few opportunities to race against the professionals. In fact, it remains a blot on cycling history that racers from eastern Europe never rode the Tour before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It was a tragedy for the great Russian racer Sergei Soukhoroutchenkov (whom we called “Soukho,” or “Super whooping cough,” the nickname coined by the late British journalist and race announcer David Saunders when the Soviet rider came to the Tour of Britain Milk Race).

Soukho’s great years were from the mid-1970s to the mid-’80s, when in addition to riding away with the 1979 Peace Race and 1980 Olympic road race in Moscow, he had a remarkable streak at the Avenir. He was a dominant winner in 1978 and ’79, and a close runner-up in 1980 and ’81. Those who saw Soukho race in those years firmly believe that he could have finished on the podium at the Tour, perhaps even won it.

LeMond knew all about Soukho, having beaten him and the Soviets at the Coors Classic. At the ’82 Avenir, he was expecting another fight with the Red Guard and the fast-emerging squad from East Germany, the DDR, whose Olaf Ludwig had won that year’s Peace Race, while Bernd Drogan had just taken the world amateur road race title at Goodwood.

As for the Colombians, this was their third year competing at the Avenir. Their reputation as great climbers was confirmed when Alfonso Flores upset Soukho to win the Avenir in 1980, while Patrocinio Jimenez came in third behind Simon and Soukho in ’81. It’s interesting to remember that also on the start line of this 1982 Tour de l’Avenir was the U.S. national (amateur) team, which included a 20-year-old Andy Hampsten in his first big European stage race.

With all these talented racers, perhaps we were about to witness one of the great Tours de l’Avenir, possibly on a par with the 1964 edition, won by Italy’s Felice Gimondi from France’s Lucien Aimar (the Italian won the following year’s Tour de France, while Aimar took the 1966 Tour), and the 1969 race, taken by Joop Zoetemelk, another future Tour winner.

What we knew for sure after the Avenir’s 4.2km prologue time trial in Divonne-les-Bains was that LeMond would have a fight on his hands: The DDR squad took the first five places in the prologue with Uwe Raab, Ludwig, Drogan, Mario Kummer and Falk Boden! The East Germans continued their early rush when Andreas Petermann took the first stage in a field sprint. And race leader Raab extended his reign over the yellow jersey on stage 2, a 72km team time trial that the DDR won by 1:12 over LeMond’s Renault team, with the Soviets third, 2:03 back.

Most of the stages in this edition of the Avenir took place in the Savoy region of the French Alps, and the first day in the mountains’ foothills came on stage 3 between Châtillon and Voreppe. Raab, not a great climber, lost the lead, but only to his teammate, Ludwig, who finished the stage in second place, 42 seconds behind Colombia’s Alfonso Lopez. LeMond was beaten by Petermann in the fifth-place sprint at 2:13 back.

Stage 4 really opened up the race. It was a 21.5km mountain time trial finishing at the ski station of La Ruchère, where the true climbers came to the fore. At the head of them was LeMond, who defeated Colombian runner-up Rafael Acevedo by 18 seconds, with Millar in third another eight seconds behind. Simon was fourth, while fifth-place Lopez hung on to the yellow jersey. Sadly, Soukho wasn’t on his best form and didn’t become a factor in the race until the last weekend, when he took second place on the final stage.

The Colombians were in fine form, though. With their roster of top climbers — including Lopez, Acevedo, Lucho Herrera, Cristobal Perez and Israel Corredor — the riders from the Andes thought they would dominate stage 5. This stage was only 130km long but contained climb after climb in the Chartreuse range of the Alps, and finished up at another ski village, Le Planolet. The Colombians attacked early, but LeMond followed them with Millar and a young French pro, Raymond Martin (a future Tour de France KoM). And then the young American blew them all away to finish the stage in four hours, 5:25 ahead of Martin, Millar and Perez. The East Germans and Soviets were all 10 or more minutes behind!

With LeMond safely in the yellow jersey, his Renault teammates only had to ride defensively for the remaining six stages. LeMond extended his lead by taking his third stage win in a 45km time trial at St. Trivier, hometown of the Mavic company, while Hampsten distinguished himself with fourth place on stage 9.

There was only one more truly challenging day, the 170km stage 10 from Divonne to Morzine via a series of Cat. 1 climbs. LeMond had no need to chase a break by the Colombian tandem of Herrera and Corredor, who arrived in Morzine 2:50 ahead of the American in third place. In the final standings, LeMond won the 1982 Tour de l’Avenir by a record margin of 10:18 over Millar, followed by Perez (third at 11:38), Herrera (fourth at 12:03) and Boden (fifth at 13:08).

No other American has won the still-prestigious Tour de l’Avenir. Alexi Grewal, the 1984 Olympic champion, came close in 1986 when he won the grand alpine stage over the Col d’Izoard, but race leader (and final winner) Miguel Induráin saved his yellow jersey by a storming descent into Briançon. Grewal was finally third overall. The only other Americans to finish on the Avenir podium were Kevin Livingston (second to Laurent Roux in 1997) and Floyd Landis (third in 1999 behind Spaniards Unai Osa and David Latasa).

As for LeMond, after becoming the first American to win the Avenir, he headed into the 1983 season with a big boost in base salary (up to $100,000) and even higher ambitions. I’ll return to his trail-blazing exploits next week.