121 Facts About Greg LeMond

1.

Gregory James LeMond was born on June 26,1961 and is an American former professional road racing cyclist, entrepreneur, and anti-doping advocate.

2.

Greg LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986; he is the first non-European professional cyclist to win the men's Tour.

3.

Greg LeMond was accidentally shot with pellets and seriously injured while hunting in 1987.

4.

Greg LeMond successfully defended his Tour title the following year, becoming one of only eight riders to win three or more Tours.

5.

Greg LeMond retired from competition in December 1994 and was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1996.

6.

Greg LeMond was the first professional cyclist to sign a million-dollar contract and the first cyclist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

7.

Greg LeMond is a vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use in cycling and is a founding board member of 1in6.

8.

Greg LeMond was born in Lakewood, California, and was raised in the Washoe Valley, a ranch country on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Reno, and the family home about 2.5 miles north of Carson City, Nevada.

9.

Greg LeMond attended Earl Wooster High School in Reno, but lived too far away to participate in team sports.

10.

Greg LeMond often rode home from Wooster, taking a route over Mt.

11.

Greg LeMond started competing in 1976, and after dominating the Intermediate category and winning the first 11 races he entered, he received permission to ride against older, more seasoned competitors in the Junior category.

12.

In 1977, while still only 15, Greg LeMond finished second in the Tour of Fresno to John Howard, then the United States's top road cyclist and the 1971 Pan American Games champion.

13.

At age 18, Greg LeMond was selected for the 1980 US Olympic cycling team, the youngest ever to make the team.

14.

Borysewicz, whom Greg LeMond described as his "first real coach," wanted to retain his protege through the next Olympic cycle and discouraged him from turning pro, but Greg LeMond was determined.

15.

Nevertheless, while he was the reigning Junior World Road Champion in 1980, Greg LeMond received no professional offers, and so in the spring of 1980, he joined the US National cycling team for a 6-week European racing campaign.

16.

Greg LeMond was an "exceptionally gifted" amateur rider who quickly established himself as one of the most talented cyclists on the professional circuit.

17.

Greg LeMond followed with a win in the Coors Classic in the United States, finishing ahead of Sergei Sukhoruchenkov, the 1980 Olympic road champion.

18.

Greg LeMond missed standing on the podium with race winner Hinault, as Pascal Simon had finished ahead of him.

19.

Greg LeMond considered the race to have been a "major steppingstone" in his career.

20.

The injury forced Greg LeMond to ride a reduced schedule before entering the World Championships, which were in Goodwood, England that year.

21.

Saronni was very strong at the end of the race and flew past Boyer and Greg LeMond, winning by 5 seconds over Greg LeMond, with another 5 seconds back to Kelly.

22.

Greg LeMond had argued for the team to compete as the European teams did, but team management and Boyer voted against him.

23.

Aged 21, Greg LeMond was the first American pro to win a medal at the World's since Frank Kramer took silver in 1912.

24.

Two weeks later, on September 20,1982, Greg LeMond won the mountainous 12-day, 837-mile Tour de l'Avenir by a record 10 minutes, 18 seconds.

25.

The victory, and the time advantage Greg LeMond held at the end, stunned Europe and provided broad confirmation that Greg LeMond was indeed fuoriclasse.

26.

Greg LeMond rode his first Tour de France in 1984, finishing third in support of team leader Laurent Fignon, and winning the white jersey of the young rider classification.

27.

At this point, it was clear that Greg LeMond was an elite rider capable of winning the Tour in his own right.

28.

Greg LeMond possessed a natural talent for riding the Grand Tours, and got stronger over the course of a three-week race.

29.

Greg LeMond later revealed that team management and his own coach Paul Kochli had misled him as to how far back Hinault had dropped during the crucial Stage 17 mountain stage.

30.

Hinault won the 1985 Tour, with Greg LeMond finishing second, 1:42 behind.

31.

Greg LeMond had ridden as the dutiful lieutenant, and his support enabled Hinault to win his fifth Tour.

32.

Greg LeMond was however, part of the group that was going to win, and while Hampsten and Keifel survived the race to this point, unfortunately they were too far back to assist LeMond in the final ten kilometers.

33.

Greg LeMond had two teammates remaining in Johan van der Velde and Gerard Veldscholten, assisting him by riding at the front but not actually chasing, therefore slowing the chase group.

34.

Greg LeMond too had nothing left to chase down this final attack feeling that if he did, he wouldn't have anything left for the sprint and wouldn't win any medal at all.

35.

An unspoken condition was that his help would be contingent upon Greg LeMond demonstrating that he was clearly the better rider.

36.

Greg LeMond had bad luck during the stage, having suffered a punctured tire requiring a wheel change, and later in the stage a bicycle change was required when he broke a wheel.

37.

Greg LeMond was frustrated with the outcome and the impact it would have on how the team would function for the remainder of the race.

38.

Greg LeMond claimed he was trying to draw out LeMond's rivals, but none of these attacks were planned with LeMond.

39.

Greg LeMond was clearly willing to ride aggressively and take advantage of the opportunities presented.

40.

Greg LeMond was never placed in difficulty, except by his own teammate.

41.

Greg LeMond put an arm around Hinault and gave him a smile and the stage win in a show of unity, but the infighting was not over.

42.

Greg LeMond had to keep his eye on his teammate and rival throughout the race.

43.

Greg LeMond would keep the yellow jersey to the end of the race and win his first Tour, but he felt betrayed by Hinault and the La Vie Claire team leadership.

44.

Greg LeMond later stated the 1986 Tour was the most difficult and stressful race of his career.

45.

Greg LeMond had planned to defend his title in the 1987 Tour de France with La Vie Claire, but he was unable to participate.

46.

Greg LeMond returned to the United States to recover from the injury.

47.

Greg LeMond was with Rodney Barber and Patrick Blades, his uncle and brother-in-law.

48.

The movement had come from Greg LeMond, who was hit in his back and right side with approximately 60 pellets.

49.

Greg LeMond's injuries were life-threatening, but a police helicopter was already airborne near the scene and transported Greg LeMond on a 15-minute air medical flight to the Medical Center at University of California-Davis.

50.

Greg LeMond had suffered a pneumothorax to his right lung and extensive bleeding, having lost some 65 percent of his blood volume.

51.

Greg LeMond underwent another surgery to relieve the obstruction and take down the adhesions.

52.

Concerned that his team would drop him if they knew the shooting accident required a second surgery, Greg LeMond asked the surgeons to remove his appendix at the same time.

53.

Greg LeMond then informed his team that he had had his appendix removed, but the rest of the story was left somewhat vague.

54.

Greg LeMond's comeback was hampered by over-training which resulted in tendonitis in his right shin requiring surgery.

55.

Greg LeMond missed the Tour for the second year running.

56.

The result was that Greg LeMond moved from PDM, one of the strongest teams in the peloton, to ADR, a team based in Belgium.

57.

The deal was completed on New Year's Eve, just hours before Greg LeMond would have been legally obliged to ride another season for the Dutch team.

58.

Greg LeMond placed a surprising second there, more than a minute ahead of overall winner Laurent Fignon.

59.

Greg LeMond seemed to ride himself into better condition during the first week's flat stages, and he was coming into peak form by the time the Tour reached the mountains.

60.

Greg LeMond remained at the front of the race in the Pyrenees, but lost the lead to his former teammate and rival Laurent Fignon on stage 10 in Superbagneres.

61.

The see-saw battle continued, and when Fignon attacked on the upper slopes of Alpe d'Huez Greg LeMond was unable to go with him, placing the yellow jersey back on the shoulders of Fignon.

62.

Greg LeMond had done wind tunnel testing in the off season and perfected his riding position.

63.

Greg LeMond rode the time trial with a rear disc wheel, a cut-down Giro aero helmet and the same Scott clip-on aero bars which had helped him to the Stage 5 time trial win.

64.

Greg LeMond briefly dropped Fignon and caught the lead group on his own.

65.

Greg LeMond entered the 1990 Tour de France as defending champion and a pre-race favorite after leaving ADR to join the much stronger French team.

66.

Greg LeMond was prevented from challenging for the lead until the yellow jersey left the shoulders of his teammate.

67.

Greg LeMond closed in on Chiappucci and on stage 16 he put his stamp of authority on the race during the final climb of Luz Ardiden.

68.

Greg LeMond finally overtook Chiappucci on the final individual time trial on stage 20, where he finished over two minutes ahead of the unheralded Italian.

69.

Greg LeMond won the 1990 Tour without taking any of the individual stages.

70.

Greg LeMond remains the last rider to win the Tour while wearing the world champion jersey.

71.

In September, Greg LeMond attempted to defend his title at the 1990 UCI Road World Championships, but finished fourth, eight seconds behind the winner, his former teammate Rudy Dhaenens of Belgium.

72.

Greg LeMond was the defending champion, trained well and had a solid team to support him.

73.

Greg LeMond was among the leaders going into the Stage 8 individual time trial, and he finished second to the Spaniard Miguel Indurain.

74.

Greg LeMond felt he was riding extremely well, and though his TT-effort had propelled him into the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification, losing eight seconds to Indurain shook his confidence.

75.

Greg LeMond experienced difficulty on the first climb and he cracked on the Col du Tourmalet, losing significant time to Claudio Chiappucci, and eventual winner Indurain.

76.

Greg LeMond continued to race, but was unable to seriously challenge for the lead thereafter, finishing the 1991 Tour seventh overall.

77.

In 1992, Greg LeMond won the Tour DuPont, which would be the last major win of his career.

78.

Greg LeMond did extensive endurance training on the road the following winter, but his performances the following spring failed to improve.

79.

Greg LeMond had to abandon the 1993 Giro d'Italia two days before the final stage after difficult racing left him 125th on GCC and third-from-last in the final time trial.

80.

Greg LeMond was too exhausted to enter the 1993 Tour de France.

81.

In November 1993 Greg LeMond confided to Samuel Abt that power output in watts would become the key metric.

82.

Greg LeMond had to abandon after the first week before the race had reached the difficult mountain stages.

83.

At the time the reasons for Greg LeMond's increasing difficulties were not entirely known.

84.

In 2007 Greg LeMond speculated that he might not have had the condition after all, and suggested that lead toxicity from the shotgun pellets still embedded in his body might have been responsible, the effects of which were increased by heavy training.

85.

Greg LeMond has acknowledged since 2010 that the increasing prevalence of doping in cycling contributed to his lack of competitiveness.

86.

Greg LeMond frankly admitted to Abt in 1999: "I figure I had three months that went right for me after the hunting accident," three months in which he won the two Tours and a world road race championship.

87.

Two years after his retirement Greg LeMond was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Rodale Park in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania.

88.

Greg LeMond was a pioneer in the use of carbon fiber bicycle frames in European professional road cycling, and his Tour de France win in 1986 ahead of Bernard Hinault was the first for a carbon-framed bicycle.

89.

Ironically, given the rivalry that existed at the time between the American and his French teammate, Greg LeMond rode a "Bernard Hinault" Signature Model Look prototype that year.

90.

Greg LeMond won the 1989 Tour de France, the 1989 World Championship, and his final Tour de France in 1990 on carbon fiber frames.

91.

In 1990, Greg LeMond founded Greg LeMond Bicycles to develop machines for himself that would be marketed and sold to the public.

92.

Greg LeMond found himself at odds with Trek in July 2001 after he expressed public concern over the relationship between Italian doping doctor Michele Ferrari and Trek's star athlete, Lance Armstrong.

93.

Greg LeMond's complaint included statistics detailing slow sales in some markets, including the fact that between September 2001 and June 2007, Trek only sold $10,393 worth of LeMond bikes in France, a country in which LeMond was both famous and popular.

94.

In late 2012, Greg LeMond purchased the Greg LeMond Revolution from Hoist, relaunching with a new management team in Minneapolis.

95.

At the Interbike trade show in September 2013, Greg LeMond announced that he was returning to the business of bicycle manufacture and sales by partnering with French company Time.

96.

Greg LeMond purchased Time Sport USA, the US distributor for the company.

97.

Greg LeMond purchased several building lots and maintained a property at the resort.

98.

Greg LeMond became a restaurateur in August 1990 when, in partnership with his wife and her parents, he opened Scott Kee's Tour de France on France Avenue in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota.

99.

Greg LeMond founded Greg LeMond Composites in 2016 to manufacture high-volume, low-cost carbon fiber composites under a licensing agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an exclusive 20-year licensing agreement with Deakin University.

100.

Greg LeMond continued to work for the channel until 2017.

101.

Greg LeMond is a longtime vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use.

102.

Greg LeMond first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France.

103.

Greg LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors and has pointed out that doping products ultimately victimize the professional cyclists who make use of them.

104.

Greg LeMond received intense criticism in 2001 when he publicly criticized Lance Armstrong's relationship with Dr Michele Ferrari.

105.

Greg LeMond's comments placed him in the center of an anti-doping controversy.

106.

Armstrong appeared angry and interrupted Greg LeMond, telling him it was time to move on.

107.

Greg LeMond has clashed with fellow Tour rider Floyd Landis regarding the doping issue.

108.

On May 17,2007, Greg LeMond testified at a USADA hearing convened to weigh the evidence of doping by Landis during the 2006 Tour de France.

109.

Under oath, Greg LeMond described a phone conversation he had with Landis on August 6,2006, as well as another with Landis' business manager, Will Geoghegan, on May 16,2007, the evening before Greg LeMond appeared to testify.

110.

On July 23,2009, Greg LeMond wrote an opinion article in the French newspaper Le Monde where he questioned the validity of Alberto Contador's climb up Verbier in the 2009 Tour de France.

111.

Greg LeMond has criticized the UCI and its former president, Pat McQuaid.

112.

In December 2012, Greg LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made in the leadership for the UCI and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping.

113.

Greg LeMond is married to Kathy and together they have three children: sons Geoffrey and Scott, and daughter Simone.

114.

Greg LeMond narrated an award-winning documentary for Adventures for the Cure in 2008.

115.

On July 16,2007, Greg LeMond rode the L'Etape du Tour cyclosportive with his son, and found it to be a defining moment in his post-competition life.

116.

Greg LeMond provided additional details concerning the circumstances of his 2001 apology to Armstrong, stating that Trek, the longtime manufacturer and distributor of Greg LeMond Racing Cycles, had threatened to end the relationship at the behest of Armstrong if he did not apologize.

117.

Greg LeMond described how being a victim of molestation had impacted his life and his racing career.

118.

In September 2007, Greg LeMond became a founding board member of the non-profit organization 1in6.

119.

Greg LeMond was in a car accident on the morning of January 30,2013.

120.

Greg LeMond was driving through wintery and icy conditions to his dentist in Wayzata, Minnesota, when he lost control of his car.

121.

Greg LeMond suffered a concussion and was left with no memory of the incident.