LeMond I

BotanyBay · May 10, 2012

It's always good to update ourselves on what he said, because some of the things he said, he never really said.

ultimobici · May 10, 2012

BotanyBay said:
Remember, that Greg was well-retired when he gave this interview, and he brought his late-80's level of knowledge with him. Everything he said post-retirement is just out-of-the-loop scuttlebutt.

He made some statements where he probably didn't give enough credit to the actual power of the oxygen vectors on single-day performances. I think if he could revisit many of those statements, he would (based on current-day knowledge)

The thing to bear in mind is that that interview was, judging by Lemond walking about being 36, going on 37, pre Festina. Before that most of us knew little or nothing of the benefits. Once Festina broke there was a flood of information on blood doping/manipulation. While I doubt Lemond was unaware of the existence of doping in sport in general and cycling in particular, I can understand that he was quite likely to be less up to speed on the availability and effectiveness. Not because he was naive or stupid, but because he had always been unwilling to imbibe. At Renault he was accompanied by his wife most of the time and often his father. That would have made it hard for pressure to bear on him to dope. Also he was not a lowly pro trying to carve out a niche, he was a star from day one. Why else would cycling's best DS & top rider travel all the way to the states to sign him? I suspect that, while Lemond knew EPO gave a benefit, when the Festina Scandal broke and the information came out about EPO's real benefits he had a "OH, it's that good!" moment. It must have then crossed his mind that the reason for his rapid drop off in results might not be as he originally had believed. Especially as his illness had not progressed as it should have over the years. Mitochondrial Myopathy, as I understand it, is not a disease that is benign or curable. It is a degenerative disease and the best on can hope for is that you manage its symptoms.

pmcg76 · May 10, 2012

ChrisE said:
I asked this earlier in the thread, and all I hear are crickets and tinnitis.

When did GL speak out about his knowledge of EPO? Thanks.

I posted this already but clearly got buried pages back. It doesnt directly refererence EPO but clearly alludes to what was going on at the thime. This was taken from an interview with Cycle Sport just after he retired in late 94.

LeMonds descent from Tour winner to also ran defies logic, when compared with Sean Kelly and Pedro Delgado's gentle trajectories down from the top. "I dont know if Kelly's descent has been as dramatic as people think, its just that everybody else is coming up. Delgado's was a pretty decent, gradual descent. And I think there's lot of riders out there that arent racing on just water either. I'm not accusing anyone but I do think that there's some questionable things going on in pro cycling".

ChrisE · May 10, 2012

pmcg76 said:
I posted this already but clearly got buried pages back. It doesnt directly refererence EPO but clearly alludes to what was going on at the thime. This was taken from an interview with Cycle Sport just after he retired in late 94.

LeMonds descent from Tour winner to also ran defies logic, when compared with Sean Kelly and Pedro Delgado's gentle trajectories down from the top. "I dont know if Kelly's descent has been as dramatic as people think, its just that everybody else is coming up. Delgado's was a pretty decent, gradual descent. And I think there's lot of riders out there that arent racing on just water either. I'm not accusing anyone but I do think that there's some questionable things going on in pro cycling".

Yes, but that doesn't square with his interview above in 98 when he downplays EPO and says altitude training is the same thing, and where he also says no drugs could help him. I believe that is a reference to his blood disease. He also states an out of shape Jeff Bradley was competitive so no drug issue.

I am in a rush right now so no link but I believe he has stated in the past his numbers in or 92/93 or so were his best ever. This contradicts his alluding to the blood disease. I wrote this upthread.

So, taking these interviews all together and all his statements, how do all of these things square up?

gillan1969 · May 10, 2012

ChrisE said:
Yes, but that doesn't square with his interview above in 98 when he downplays EPO and says altitude training is the same thing, and where he also says no drugs could help him. I believe that is a reference to his blood disease. He also states an out of shape Jeff Bradley was competitive so no drug issue.

I am in a rush right now so no link but I believe he has stated in the past his numbers in or 92/93 or so were his best ever. This contradicts his alluding to the blood disease. I wrote this upthread.

So, taking these interviews all together and all his statements, how do all of these things square up?

that response is one of that time though...he may have only been working on the assumption of the what the physiological response was i.e. the same as altitude trauining. However post '98 and the subsequent examination of the various techniques and products, we now know that the results were far greater than that of altitude training, especially when combined with the skills of a few of the leading 'preparatores'.

i.e. in 94 he didn't know and just saw huge hikes in performance...in 98 he knew what was being used but (and not being armed with what we now know) he assumed it couldn't just be EPO as EPO was just like altitude training which was available to all...... naive? yes...but then we all were up to '98

it sounds like an honest response to someone who, having not taken it...couldn't understand the benefits it gave and was scrambling for answers....as you would when 'no-hopers' were burning away from you with ease....

ultimobici · May 10, 2012

pmcg76 said:
I posted this already but clearly got buried pages back. It doesnt directly refererence EPO but clearly alludes to what was going on at the thime. This was taken from an interview with Cycle Sport just after he retired in late 94.

LeMonds descent from Tour winner to also ran defies logic, when compared with Sean Kelly and Pedro Delgado's gentle trajectories down from the top. "I dont know if Kelly's descent has been as dramatic as people think, its just that everybody else is coming up. Delgado's was a pretty decent, gradual descent. And I think there's lot of riders out there that arent racing on just water either. I'm not accusing anyone but I do think that there's some questionable things going on in pro cycling".

A couple of things are being overlooked in comparing LeMond's career end to Delgado to degree and more particularly Kelly. Delgado didn't have a sharp drop off in performances despite being over a year older than LeMond, not to mention his questionable doping history. Kelly though is very difficult to compare LeMond with. He was a full 5 years older than LeMond, and was still winning big at the same age.

pmcg76 · May 10, 2012

ChrisE said:
Yes, but that doesn't square with his interview above in 98 when he downplays EPO and says altitude training is the same thing, and where he also says no drugs could help him. I believe that is a reference to his blood disease. He also states an out of shape Jeff Bradley was competitive so no drug issue.

I am in a rush right now so no link but I believe he has stated in the past his numbers in or 92/93 or so were his best ever. This contradicts his alluding to the blood disease. I wrote this upthread.

So, taking these interviews all together and all his statements, how do all of these things square up?

From 89 onwards LeMond's form could come and go very quickly. Everyone focuses on his improvements but nobody examines on why his form disappeared so quickly too.

For example, everyone talks about his amazing his transformation in 89 but then nobody looks at how a guy who finished Top 20 in Het Volk, 4th at Criterium International, 6th at Tirreno Adriatico in March against the likes of Fignon, Mottet, Roche, Rominger, Madiot, Indurain would be struggling against a weak Pro-am field just over a month later. Why did his form drop so quickly?

In 91, he struggled in the spring but hit form again for the Tour and looked fantastic in the first week, on the attack stage 2, 2nd in the TT to Indurain he was a nailed on winner as the race hit the mountains. Then BOOM, he loses over 8 minutes on one stage which had never happened LeMond before.

In 92 LeMond won Tour de Trump, then went to Europe, finished 2nd in Tour de Armorique, 11th at Dauphine Libere and 4th at Tour of Switzerland. His best Tour build-up since 86 and then he finishes outside the time-limit in the mountains after being on the attack in the first week. That is an amazing, inexplicable drop in form in the space of weeks.

LeMond said his numbers in tests in 91/92 were fantastic and I believe that but I also believe that his illness could destroy his form in the space of days. To me, thats why LeMond would say that no drugs could help him as even EPO cannot help when a rider has no form.

At the same time as LeMond suffering from this illness, EPO was entering the peloton and spreading. So even if LeMond was on form, he was finding it tougher to compete with the guys of EPO. The day that LeMond exploded in the 91 Tour was the day Indurain and Chiapucci took off. These two were widely believed to be on EPO so maybe it was a combination of losing form and suffering at the hands of EPO riders.

As EPO spread in 93/94, LeMond became less and less relevant. Was this down to his illness or EPO or a combination of both? By the time he retired he was a nobody in pro-cycling having been a top tour rider.

We do know that the French teams were the last to get on the EPO train so even though they knew it was being used and could see the benefit in others, they didnt really know the science of it. The GAN team at the 93 Tour were rubbish and LeMond wasnt even selected that year, GAN were alleged to get on EPO in 95/96. He mentions Eric Boyer in that 98 interview and Boyer moved to Polti in 95 and then quit at age 31.

LeMond clearly knew that EPO was being used by the Italians in particular as he alluded to in that interview from 94 but he clearly had limited knowledge of EPO itself.

I think LeMond is a bit of a waffler as evidenced by many more recent interviews and speeches so that interview from 98 seems a bit all over the place. He seemed to believe that riders had not improved physically through natural means which is why he gives the exampe of Bradley beating the Postal rider.

He then goes on to state that the Italians had really improved through medical means which was true. His statement that EPO was the same as altitude training was the general belief at that time as knowledge of EPO was not anywhere near as common as it is now. I seen it described as getting the benefits of altitude taining without going to altitude. Obviously it was much more effective than altitude training.

Maybe its fair to say that the illness was the hammer blow for LeMond but it was EPO that finally killed him off.

BotanyBay · May 10, 2012

ChrisE said:
Yes, but that doesn't square with his interview above in 98 when he downplays EPO and says altitude training is the same thing, and where he also says no drugs could help him...

I knew that this post was coming from you. And as I've said, I think a 2012 Greg Lemond would have given a very different answer to those same questions. He'd been out of the loop, Festina hadn't broken yet and he was still carrying his pre-retirement knowledge of O2 vectors with him.

Lemond on a top-notch oxygen vector program would have been one heck of a sight.

BotanyBay · May 10, 2012

pmcg76 said:
For example, everyone talks about his amazing his transformation in 89 but then nobody looks at how a guy who finished Top 20 in Het Volk, 4th at Criterium International, 6th at Tirreno Adriatico in March against the likes of Fignon, Mottet, Roche, Rominger, Madiot, Indurain would be struggling against a weak Pro-am field just over a month later. Why did his form drop so quickly?

ADR (his team) hadn't been paying his contract. He kept riding well, and they kept stalling. Of course, the UCI did nothing. By the time LBL came around (4 months without being paid a dime), he said "I quit" and he made good on the promise to go back home to the USA. He entered TdT because he couldn't believe that his career was potentially ending because of money, so he showed up with not having ridden for over 4-6 weeks. There is a link to this article up-thread. Agrigel was brought in as a sponsor just 2 weeks prior to the TdF, but at this point, he'd been riding extensively again.

Only Greg Lemond and Chuck Norris could make such a comeback.

thehog · May 10, 2012

BotanyBay said:
ADR (his team) hadn't been paying his contract. He kept riding well, and they kept stalling. Of course, the UCI did nothing. By the time LBL came around (4 months without being paid a dime), he said "I quit" and he made good on the promise to go back home to the USA. He entered TdT because he couldn't believe that his career was potentially ending because of money, so he showed up with not having ridden for over 4-6 weeks. There is a link to this article up-thread. Agrigel was brought in as a sponsor just 2 weeks prior to the TdF, but at this point, he'd been riding extensively again.

Only Greg Lemond and Chuck Norris could make such a comeback.

The comeback was awesome but Fignon was much the same. He hadn’t done a lot since '84 Tour wise. So his return to form in the Giro was against the curve. Again it’s as LeMond states. Those days you raced yourself back to form. In the same article LeMond was saying Fignon used to train two days a week in early season so form was always bad. You raced 50+ days and that’s how you got good by May/July. Those two also raced PR and most of the classics. Those were the days.

joe_papp · May 10, 2012

LeMond, Roche, '89 TdF final TT commentary by Phil and Paul

thehog said:
The comeback was awesome but Fignon was much the same...You raced 50+ days and that’s how you got good by May/July. Those two also raced PR and most of the classics. Those were the days.

Those WERE the days.

This thread is somewhat bittersweet, as it brings to mind the humiliation LeMond suffered in the final years of his career and the true mystery that seemed to obscure what was really happening (obscure for everyone but those few in the know coming out of Italy, I guess).

The whole notion that LeMond could've doped to the form he had in 85-86, and then again in '89, is, for me, blasted out of the water by how he actually (failed to) perform(ed) against riders who we know were engaged in rampant blood manipulation from the early-90's on. Fools. If LeMond had been doping he wouldn't have been ridden out the back of the Tour after having been perhaps its last "clean" champion. But no matter how much he suffered on the bike and was haunted or humiliated by a seemingly-mysterious inability to still ride fast in '92-'93, at least Greg will never suffer the same ignominy as Stephen Roche, by comparison.

I can't imagine how demoralizing it must've been for Greg to withdraw from the same Giro in '93 in which an EPO-fueled Roche finished top-10 overall, but there will never be a preparatore's list like this one featuring Greg's last name and a handful of aliases, and elsewhere, a coded doping-schedule:

(image originally provided by user JPMLondon in this post: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=312932&postcount=69)

Thank god Greg LeMond rode himself back into the Yellow Jersey on the last day and won the 1989 Tour de France, for nothing can ever take that away from him, or sully the memory for those of us who had the pleasure to follow the race "live," or for those who are experiencing it now for the first time thanks to the wonders of the Internet. We witnessed a genuine, authentic sporting spectacle of the kind that will perhaps (can?) never come again in cycling. "The excitement is overcoming even me!" exclaimed Phil Liggett at the time. Innocence lost...

For as much (deserved) mocking as he's subjected to (by me included), I'll never forget Phil Liggett's actual live commentary from the final TT (called w/ Paul Sherwen), especially: "Fignon is bouncing off the barriers here [LOL - in an individual time trial? ok, maybe Abdu' might've ridden it like that, but c'mon!], he's lost the Tour de France!"

Go to my blog and scroll down the entry to find the video w/ Liggett's original Channel 4 live commentary, 1-million times better than the WCP-packaged coverage that was released later that year, or the soulless, lifeless network TV coverage coming out of the US. I challenge you not to become mesmerized:

http://www.josephpapp.com/index.php/blog/article/updated_laurent_fignon_is_dead

Liggett and Sherwen, for as shamelessly as they blew the cash cow during the Armstrong era, and as badly as Phil duped the fans with his disingenuous commentaries post-Festina, were absolutely on top of their game in '89. The enthusiasm and excitement are clearly genuine in calling this final stage, and not manufactured like we've seen with disappointing regularity during Tour of California coverage, for example.

Paul Sherwen's excited, nearly-breathless commenting accurately conveys the emotional experience that was that final stage. Liggett himself makes an early comment at 0:23 that leaves you to wonder, "How could he de-evolve from one capable of such class and distinction in his race commentary in 1989 to a partisan TV-slvt who incites tribalism and disparages "outsiders" in pursuit of 'ratings,' while p00fing-out petty personal attacks as a practitioner of the (cycling) punditry of personal destruction?"

Their's was a great supporting performance in '89, & it's a shame that Phil and Paul have become so hackneyed, and their commentary so stale, manufactured, petty and trite. They were both at their best on that July day 23 years ago...

"Phil, this is the most incredible thing I think I've ever seen in my life." - indeed.

joe_papp · May 10, 2012

Anyone ever seen this before?

From a site plastered with LeMond pics, [the website on which it appears is] kinda kooky but worth a look for the halo's [found in this obviously-professionally done graphic ;]:

source: http://video.gormet.eu/tnt2-greg-lemond-team-bike/

(make sure you watch that snippet of commentary from the final TT stage - it's beautiful!)

Caruut · May 10, 2012

joe_papp said:
Those WERE the days.

This thread is somewhat bittersweet, as it brings to mind the humiliation LeMond suffered in the final years of his career and the true mystery that seemed to obscure what was really happening (obscure for everyone but those few in the know coming out of Italy, I guess).

The whole notion that LeMond could've doped to the form he had in 85-86, and then again in '89, is, for me, blasted out of the water by how he actually (failed to) perform(ed) against riders who we know were engaged in rampant blood manipulation from the early-90's on. Fools. If LeMond had been doping he wouldn't have been ridden out the back of the Tour after having been perhaps its last "clean" champion. But no matter how much he suffered on the bike and was haunted or humiliated by a seemingly-mysterious inability to still ride fast in '92-'93, at least Greg will never suffer the same ignominy as Stephen Roche, by comparison.

I can't imagine how demoralizing it must've been for Greg to withdraw from the same Giro in '93 in which an EPO-fueled Roche finished top-10 overall, but there will never be a preparatore's list like this one featuring Greg's last name and a handful of aliases, and elsewhere, a coded doping-schedule:

(image originally provided by user JPMLondon in this post: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=312932&postcount=69)

Thank god Greg LeMond rode himself back into the Yellow Jersey on the last day and won the 1989 Tour de France, for nothing can ever take that away from him, or sully the memory for those of us who had the pleasure to follow the race "live," or for those who are experiencing it now for the first time thanks to the wonders of the Internet. We witnessed a genuine, authentic sporting spectacle of the kind that will perhaps (can?) never come again in cycling. "The excitement is overcoming even me!" exclaimed Phil Liggett at the time. Innocence lost...

For as much (deserved) mocking as he's subjected to (by me included), I'll never forget Phil Liggett's actual live commentary from the final TT (called w/ Paul Sherwen), especially: "Fignon is bouncing off the barriers here [LOL - in an individual time trial? ok, maybe Abdu' might've ridden it like that, but c'mon!], he's lost the Tour de France!"

Go to my blog and scroll down the entry to find the video w/ Liggett's original ITV-4 live commentary, 1-million times better than the WCP-packaged coverage that was released later that year, or the soulless, lifeless network TV coverage coming out of the US. I challenge you not to become mesmerized:

http://www.josephpapp.com/index.php/blog/article/updated_laurent_fignon_is_dead

Liggett and Sherwen, for as shamelessly as they blew the cash cow during the Armstrong era, and as badly as Phil duped the fans with his disingenuous commentaries post-Festina, were absolutely on top of their game in '89. The enthusiasm and excitement are clearly genuine in calling this final stage, and not manufactured like we've seen with disappointing regularity during Tour of California coverage, for example.

Paul Sherwen's excited, nearly-breathless commenting accurately conveys the emotional experience that was that final stage. Liggett himself makes an early comment at 0:23 that leaves you to wonder, "How could he de-evolve from one capable of such class and distinction in his race commentary in 1989 to a partisan TV-slvt who incites tribalism and disparages "outsiders" in pursuit of 'ratings,' while p00fing-out petty personal attacks as a practitioner of the (cycling) punditry of personal destruction?"

Their's was a great supporting performance in '89, & it's a shame that Phil and Paul have become so hackneyed, and their commentary so stale, manufactured, petty and trite. They were both at their best on that July day 23 years ago...

"Phil, this is the most incredible thing I think I've ever seen in my life." - indeed.

Great link there. You can see Fignon weaving about all over the place - must have been windy in Paris that day. Back in those days though, there was no ITV4, just the one ITV.

The pair of them just exude excitement for the sport there, a far cry from Liggett's attempt to parody himself these days by abusing his own clichés. It also stuck me how much Paul Sherwen's accent has changed. He's gone from a proper Northern accent to Northerner-spent-a-lot-of-time-in-the-South.

British viewers may recognise a young Richard Keys (latterly of "Did you smash it?" infamy) at the end.

thehog · May 10, 2012

Caruut said:
British viewers may recognise a young Richard Keys (latterly of "Did you smash it?" infamy) at the end.

He does look very young and dashing in those days. He could have smashed it proper good. P&P should get Jamie Redknapp on the show to attract a new audience.

joe_papp · May 10, 2012

Caruut said:
...Back in those days though, there was no ITV4, just the one ITV...

Post edited to correct ITV-4 to Channel 4 (original video title incorrectly stated ITV-4, I guess).

thehog · May 10, 2012

joe_papp said:
Post edited to correct ITV-4 to Channel 4 (original video title incorrectly stated ITV-4, I guess).

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