Laurent Fignon, twice winner of the Tour de France and runner-up in the race's greatest edition in 1989, is dead. He succumbed to cancer at the age of 50 today in Paris, France.
"I don't want to die at 50 but if my cancer is incurable, what can I do?," he lamented to Paris-Match magazine in January.
Fignon, a Parisian known in the peloton as "The Professor" for his bespectacled appearance, won the Tour in 1983 and 1984, the Giro d'Italia in 1989 and Milan-San Remo twice, in 1988 and 1989.
Considered to be one of the best riders of the 80's, Fignon could also count in his palmares victories in two editions of the Critérium International, the GP des Nations, and Flèche Wallonne; he was the 1984 French professional champion.
But 1989 was his most memorable season.
Despite fighting a see-saw battle with Greg LeMond during the '89 Tour, and swapping the race leader's yellow jersey four times, Fignon could not best the American. He started the final stage - a 25km individual time trial - with a 50-second lead, but would be pipped by eight seconds in the end, the closest margin ever.
As Fignon raced down The Avenue des Champs-Élysées and headed towards the finish of the race, British commentator Phil Ligget exclaimed, "Fignon is bouncing off the barriers! He's lost the Tour de France!" (see 4:38 in the video included below) It was a watershed moment in cycling history, and one that clearly marked a transition between old and new.
While he configured a dual-disc set-up for his time trial bike, Fignon chose to race that day without the benefit of an aerodynamic helmet, or the newfangled clip-on handlebars for which his rival LeMond had opted.
And despite only a year's age difference between them, the pony-tailed Fignon seemed older and more fragile after crossing the line - a spent force - while LeMond's post-race joy and wonderment were popping.
In a book published in June 2009, "We Were Young and Carefree," Fignon revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer. He also admitted to having used doping products at various points throughout his career, but said he did not know if they had caused his illness.
"I love life, I love a good laugh, travel, books, good food. I'm a typical Frenchman. I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to die."
After he retired, Fignon managed races including Paris-Nice before becoming a television consultant. He worked for France 2 television on the last Tour, despite a voice broken by his illness, and said at the end of the race that he would be back in 2011.
As Greg LeMond told me several years ago, "Fignon was a great competitor and he pushed me to push myself to do my best."
Aloof. Aristocratic. Ferocious. Fierce. In retirement - rejuvenated. Fignon may not have feared death, but he is, undoubtedly, gone too soon.
This report includes writing by Jean-Paul Couret and Editing by Clare Fallon (Reuters).
Notes: LeMond's effort was the fastest individual time trial for a distance longer than 10 km ever ridden in the Tour (54.545 km/h average speed). Fignon finished third in the final time trial, averaging 53.59 km/h (33.33 mph). Fignon’s Super-U teammate Thierry Marie took second on the stage, at 33 seconds.
UPDATE: On a day filled with tributes to Fignon, these words by LeMond stand out:
"It's a really sad day. I see him as one of the great riders who was hampered by injuries. He had a very, very big talent, much more than anyone recognized. For me he was one of the greater champions that was not recognized. He was more recognized for his loss in the Tour de France than for his two victories.”
“When he lost the Tour de France in 1989 it was one of the few victories where I felt we both won. The saddest thing for me is that for the rest of his career he said he won two Tours de France, when in reality we both could have won the race."
I apologize to those who thought it was a poor choice to feature video of Fignon actually losing a bike race - rather than winning. It was 1989 when I started cycling, however, and my first - and enduring - memory of Fignon was his epic battle with LeMond. If you have links to video clips of Fignon winning races, please feel free to leave them in the comments, and I'll add them to this main body of the post.
Though it gets harder and harder to pedal for more than a couple of hours because of the chronic pain I have in my left knee, which stems from a terrible crash in 2003 that left me in hospital for nearly a month, I enjoy riding my bike - a lot. Maybe my perception of how pleasurable it is to ride is somewhat distorted by how not fun most of my day is, but hey, it is what it is. And what it is is therapeutic. If you're a cyclist and you find yourself feeling dumpy or depressed or even angry for no good reason, perhaps trying going for a ride with no goal other than to cruise along and enjoy yourself. Note: "intervals," "wattage," and "tempo" are not part of my current biking lexicon.
To the commentator who suggested that I collaborate with Landis, Millar and Hamilton on a book - sounds great. Except for the fact that I don't know that David Millar would be willing to add anything that isn't already in the public record, and Tyler obviously isn't going to admit to anything. So I'm not sure there's much to work with there. Obviously Floyd could write an entire book on his own (I don't believe he has any desire to do so, however), but the suggestion was for a collaborative effort...
Why are most motorists so angry? Or is it just a Pittsburgh thing? Today's weather is beautiful - mid-70's and crystal-blue skies - and yet I've never been told to "Get the Fuck Off the Road!" by so many fat, angry, disgusting drivers as I was today. And should the test required of all driver's license applicants include some kind of IQ measure? Because should someone operate a motor vehicle if one minute they're threatening to run you off the road, but then in the next, after you've stopped them cold with the thoroughly perplexing insult, "Did you learn how to drive in Italy?" they chastise you for not wearing a helmet because you "could get hurt"?
I mean, didn't you just threaten to run me down with your rusty minivan? Why don't you just sit on me?
Today LeMond predicted that Armstrong will decline to start the Tour or will abandon before the race arrives on French soil. Mad respect to Greg, but in this case I think he's wrong. Lance isn't smart enough to know when his goose is cooked, and his ego will be writing checks that his legal team can't cash. I predict that RS quits the Tour en masse to protest heavy-handed treatment by French law enforcement, and many in the peloton will be happy to see them go.
That's all for now. I've got to get to bed early so I can be first in line at Border's when the WSJ goes on-sale.
"...I do find LeMond's recollection of the doping going on at the time, and his purported naivete, to be selective and a bit embellished via the passing of time. Guys all around him were on speed, horse steroids, etc., and he (of perfect French) maintains a sort of "I had no idea what they were talking about, I was just a simple kid from Nevada" type of answer when pressed.
Nonetheless, his performance truly degraded once EPO got a foothold, and he seemingly missed that train and subsequently retired, as the sport boosted past. That era slammed shut like a collapsed vein..."
Writing here, my intent isn't to put words into the mouth of Greg LeMond, so to speak, but rather, to share my understanding of LeMond's knowledge of what was going on around him at various points in my career, based on quotes attributed to him in print and from our own discussions...these are personal opinions and beliefs - not absolute truth.
That said, I believe that LeMond's awareness of doping is far more nuanced than that of a "simple kid from Nevada." Perhaps at the beginning of his career he had limited knowledge of the full menu of PED's in-use at the time, but in the final years he was certainly aware of what was being done. In fact, it formed the basis for his decision to retire - the realization that, regardless of the degree to which he thought his own condition was hampered by effects of the hunting accident (something he'd give less emphasis to a decade after leaving the sport), there was undoubtedly sophisticated, dangerous doping going on all-around him, and it allowed previously anonymous riders - like Chiappucci - to become pseudo-thoroughbreds.
I don't think I'm breaking any confidence in saying that in the present day, LeMond exhibits a clear retrospective understanding of what was happening around him during the 91-94 years.
For the record, I think Armstrong was an equally gifted and driven rider - though one of different (one-day) qualities. Just as he was a teenage triathlete phenom, beating the best pros of the era when he was just a punk from Texas, LeMond was a miracle of nature crafted by some higher power to be the best natural stage racer of the times. I don't have a copy of LeMond's "Complete Book of Bicycling" or I'd be able to quote the incident exactly, but as a teenager sick with the flu or something, I believe he was the equal of the US's best elite rider of the time, John Howard.
Actually, according to Men's Journal, "In a tough race up Mount Tamalpais, outside San Francisco, 15-year-old Greg placed second only to the great George Mount, who’d finished sixth a few months earlier in the 1976 Olympics."
Class.
The rider you are when you're 19 or 20, is the rider you'll be when you're 28, 29, 30...thus, someone destined to win the Tour at the peak of their career will be competitive in - or at least show his aptitude for - that event and ones like it, from earliest days. So, again, we see LeMond win the Dauphine in '83, then third in the Tour in '84, second in '85, and finally first in '86 (aged 25). Likewise, Fignon, born in 1960, wins the Tour in 1983 and '84, and took 7th in '87, the next year he'd finished the race.
Contrast that with Armstrong, who - while capable of winning a stage in 1993 during his first crack at the Tour - was anonymous as a GC hopeful. Armstrong's own teammate, Phil Anderson (himself no slouch as a pro - 5th in the '82 Tour at age 24 and 5th again in '85), is on record saying, "He was a one-day rider. I thought he could never, ever, win the Tour de France. Even he wouldn't have thought he could have won the Tour. He couldn't climb and he couldn't time trial, two things you have to do to win the Tour."
It's not like it takes rocket science to figure out who is going to be good at the world's toughest multi-day bike race...contenders can spot future competitors and threats based on their own experiences and observations.
Why do you think that so many people were incredulous at the thought of Bjarne Riis being the dominant Tour rider in '96 after having been completely ordinary in '89 and '91, when he was 95th and 107th overall, respectively? Oh snap! On May 25, 2007, Riis issued a press release stating that he had made "mistakes" in the past, upon which he elaborated in a press conference, where he confessed to taking EPO, growth hormone and cortisone for five years, from 1993 to 1998, including during his victory in the 1996 Tour de France. Without EPO, Bjarne = capable professional but anonymous GT rider, barely cracking the top-100 in the Tour in '89 while LeMond was plying his trade as the greatest GT rider of the modern era, and a meager 107th in '91 - as Greg still delivered a top-10 overall (7th). Ahhh, but with EPO, the Great Dane finished 5th in 1993, 14th in 1994, and 3rd in 1995, before being 'Champion' in 1996.
In an EPO/blood-transfusion-free-world, you're born capable of winning the Tour, or you're not. L.A. was not. But he was born to be a great pro. Just not a GT contender. Maybe his ego couldn't suffer knowing that he would never match LeMond in the "World's Most Important Bike Race." Who knows. Who cares? While Roche and Delgado both doped, neither needed the kind of program followed by riders like Riis, and probably also by Pantani, Armstrong, and even Indurain - riders who were not naturally capable of winning GT's, but who, with the right medical program, could realize an extra 5-10% of sustainable power output that was enough to give a margin of victory over a three-week race (augmented by the decreased recovery periods supposedly seen in EPO-boosted athletes).
What's that? Am I saying that I believe it highly likely that Indurain doped? Yes, I believe he most likely did, though that is merely my opinion and I have no direct knowledge of any illicit activities on the part of the man from Pamplona. But, his Tour pedigree is as suspicious as Riis's, and its elevation dovetails with the introduction of EPO into the European peloton:
1985: Withdrew, 4th stage
1986: Withdrew, 8th stage
1987: 97th
1988: 47th
1989: 17th
1990: 10th
1990: 1st
Banesto's own Thomas Davy testified under oath that during his tenure with the squad (1995-6), there was an organized doping program that included EPO. "In Banesto," he said, "There was a system of doping with medical supervision." Clearly that is not a charge or accusation against Indurain, but it's hard-to-ignore circumstantial evidence.
Paradoxically, Jan Ullrich, confirmed as a client of Operation Puerto's Dr. Fuentes through the DNA matching of nine bags of stored blood, may have been a LeMond-like natural talent, but he had the misfortune (from the perspective of one who might value the opportunity to compete, and win, in professional cycling without having to manipulate one's own blood) to enter the pro ranks at the height of the EPO epidemic, and to debut in the Tour in 1996 at the side of an incredibly-successful doper, while later having to compete against themost successful doping cyclist of all-time: L.A.
[Funny aside: I didn't know that The Onion weighed-in on Ullrich's trust issues with blood.]
At 1993, at age 19, Ullrich won the World Championship as an amateur (you should watch the finish here - I'd never seen the footage before, either...probably the best quote by a commentator that I've ever heard: "He's got a teammate up in front so why the hell should he work at all?!" - regarding a Latvian in the break with Ullrich and several others).
In 1995, while still only a 21 year-old, Ullrich became the elite German national time trial champion. That's elite, not U23...
From 1996 onward, well, it's all history (and innuendo, accusation, claim, counter-claim, denial, blah blah blah...)
LeMond = clean, dope-free, natural talent and class
L.A. = naturally talented professional cyclist and apparent sociopath, so motivated to win the Tour de France and enshrine himself in the pantheon of cycling greats at the expense of his competitors - and compatriots - that he purportedly threatened to generate false accusations of EPO-use against Greg LeMond in order to stanch his criticism of the Texan's association with Dr. Michele Ferrari - accused by Filippo Simeoni of managing his doping program.
I'll give L.A. credit for protecting himself by linking the fortunes of so many individuals and organizations to his own fate, thereby creating a determined network of defenders. I think it highly likely possible, however, that someone in his inner circle will break the omertà eventually, however, and he'll may be a big enough name not to be marginalized. Who this courageous individual might be, I dare not do not know and will not speculate, but he is may be out there, waiting.
In need of a breather from researching and writing about doping in cycling, I today decided to revisit the legend of Greg LeMond, America's first Tour de France champion, and perhaps the only one of three to have won the race without the use of banned PED's. (I still ended-up writing about doping, though...)
The disgraced Floyd Landis was stripped of his 2006 Tour crown (the first rider in the 105-year history of the race to lose the title because of a doping offense), whilst Lance Armstrong was revealed via retroactive testing to have used EPO in 1999 during his first Tour "win."
Updated Notes: 1) Interesting commentary on the trial here. 2)Charles Howe contacted me today (January 26, 2010) to advise me that he is the author of the document I've embedded below; he provided a URL to an updated version of it, which refers to one of six parts to a larger presentation. 3) On August 23, 2005, the French sporting newspaper L’Équipereported that frozen samples of Armstrong’s urine from six separate stages of the 1999 Tour had tested positive for r-EPO using a more sensitive and still-experimental procedure. Lance Armstrong Doping History
I first met Greg LeMond in 1996 when he was doing some commentary or something for the Olympic Trials. He was lured to Pittsburgh to star in a bike ride near Settler's Cabin Park, but the majority of the small group of riders who attended seemed intent on riding fast and hard, and not basking in the opportunity to trade pulls with the athlete who'd been at the top of their sport for a decade. My friend and training partner Tim O'Toole and I were there for the spectacle, which for us was provided not so much by LeMond, but by the local amateur riders who seemed to take pleasure in attacking and trying to drop him! The weather was crappy, the course was hilly, and I don't think Greg expected to have to finish the ride/race with a 2km climb.
To my genuine surprise, all of the other cyclists but Tim and I had attacked LeMond at the base of the climb and were riding ahead of us. Tim and I hung back with the 3-time Tour winner and at about the half-way point, LeMond grabbed a hold of Tim's jersey and told him to pull! Now LeMond could have cracked any of these guys earlier, but in the spirit of creating a memorable experience, he let Tim pull him several hundred meters up the hill before attacking and flying over the top of the climb and plummeting down the descent.
The rest of the ride was a blur, since we were close to the cars, it was cold and wet and LeMond displayed more than one turn of speed to get the group home as quickly as possible.
I don't know why I did it or where I found the courage, but after the ride I walked over to Greg and point-blank asked him if he would trade watches with me - and he didn't know me from Adam. But we both had Tag Heuer's, and while mine was from a slightly pricier line (haha! a fact that Greg didn't hesitate to point out, saying, "Are you sure you want to do this? I think I'll be getting the better deal here!"), I think I would've traded a Rolex for a Timex if it has been his, because LeModn was - and still is - The Man. Twice Champion of the World, Thrice winner of the Tour de France...a career such as his doesn't need chronicling here. With grace, if not a bit of surprise though, Greg agreed and we traded watches. And I still have LeMond's slightly-battered Tag Heuer in my watch collection, which now includes that Rolex, an IWC, Baume&Mercier and more than a few Tag's...none of which have the sentimental value of the watch I traded for with the greatest US cyclist of all time.
I was fortunate to meet Greg several more times after that first ride, and am happy that he and I have worked together recently in the pursuit of clean sport. I am tired, though, of the LeMond-bashing that followed a speech Greg gave earlier this month, which is posted at playthegame.org... The fact that LeMond DOESN'T have a slick PR machine behind him is all the more reason to give credence to the value and truth conveyed by his words. It's when someone needs to "stay on message" and dress up their speech with extreme makeovers performed by media consultants and handlers that you should be very suspect of the veracity of their defense or counter-claims.
Despite fighting a see-saw battle with Greg LeMond during the '89 Tour, and swapping the race leader's yellow jersey four times, Fignon could not best the American. He started the final stage - a 25km individual time trial - with a 50-second lead, but would be pipped by eight seconds in the end, the closest margin ever.
While he configured a dual-disc set-up for his time trial bike, Fignon chose to race that day without the benefit of an aerodynamic helmet, or the newfangled clip-on handlebars for which his rival LeMond had opted.
In a book published in June 2009, "We Were Young and Carefree," Fignon revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer. He also admitted to having used doping products at various points throughout his career, but said he did not know if they had caused his illness.
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