Richard Moore: Feud for thought

HE IS AN American hero: a Tour de France winner who almost died and was written off, before staging one of the most remarkable comebacks in sporting history. But his name is not Lance Armstrong, it is Greg LeMond, who, 20 years ago this summer, won his second Tour by what remains the smallest ever margin – just eight seconds over Laurent Fignon.

LeMond went on to win his third and final Tour a year later, but these days he is almost as well known as Armstrong's bête noire. One of the most intense and public feuds in sport began in 2001 when LeMond learned that his countryman was working with the Italian coach Michele Ferrari.

In 2004 Ferrari was convicted of sporting fraud and given a 12-month suspended prison sentence by an Italian court, though he was acquitted of supplying athletes with illegal performance enhancing drugs.

Armstrong was furious with LeMond, and the pair have been at loggerheads ever since. It's a feud that is set to come to a head in a courtroom next year.

A fortnight ago, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of his incredible performance on the Champs Elysées, LeMond made an unlikely appearance in Coventry, delivering the keynote speech at "Right to Play" – an international conference that serves as a forum for discussions covering all sport's ills, from corruption to betting, racism to drugs.

He spoke for 50 minutes, with much of his speech devoted to Armstrong, though not to the question of whether the seven-time winner can win an eighth Tour when this year's race begins in Monaco on Saturday. After his presentation LeMond was asked about his compatriot's comeback to the race, three years after his retirement. Then, standing on the podium on the Champs Elysées, Armstrong gave a victory speech in which he attacked "the people who don't believe in cycling, the cynics and sceptics".

"I'm sorry for you," added Armstrong as he stood alongside the riders he'd just defeated, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich. A year later, both Basso and Ullrich would be implicated in a blood doping scandal and ejected from the Tour: another incident that added credence to LeMond's suspicion that cheating at the top level was endemic. So, what does LeMond make of Armstrong's second coming, after his comeback from cancer in 1999, the year of his first victory? "It's a noble cause," says LeMond, raising an eyebrow, "a noble cause. That's at least what he says."

The "cause" being Armstrong's stated mission: that his comeback is to raise global awareness of cancer. "I say that it's kind of sad that he can't stay away from the limelight," continues LeMond, "and that he has a need to always be up there. Unfortunately you still get old, (and] some day you've got to stop. I think he'll have a hard time when the applause and the euphoria around him subside.

"But I think there are other reasons and motives for him coming back. He (thinks he] can save the sport again, which they thought he did in '99 (the year after the Festina doping scandal]. But you can only save the sport if it's done with real inspiration and real meaning, and I don't think that's the case. But we'll see – I don't know."

There seems little doubt that the toll of LeMond's feud with Armstrong has been considerable. He estimates that it has cost him "between $10 and $20 million," mainly because he and Armstrong had one thing in common: the US bike manufacturer Trek. Trek sponsor Armstrong; they distributed LeMond's line of bikes. But in the battle between the two Americans, the manufacturer sided with Armstrong. The case that will come to court next year is officially Trek versus LeMond; but for many it might as well be Armstrong versus LeMond.

LeMond implies that he doesn't care much about the money. "I've made $75m, $100m in my (cycling and business] career," he says. But then his brilliant blue eyes – pale but sparkling – turn a shade of grey. "It's cost my family a tremendous amount."

LeMond's life has, by turns, been blessed by luck and cursed by misfortune – even cruelty – throughout his 48 years (he turned 48 on Friday). Two years ago, in the most bizarre and shocking of circumstances, he was forced to reveal that he had been sexually abused by a family friend as a teenager.

He had confided in Floyd Landis, the disgraced winner of the 2006 Tour, in an effort to encourage him to come clean over his doping. LeMond's point to Landis was that, after testing positive, he should confess – that the consequences of maintaining the lie would be worse than the punishment. Landis repaid LeMond for his counsel by telling his manager about the sexual abuse, following which his manager made a threatening phone call to LeMond – pretending to be his abuser – on the eve of Landis's hearing. (LeMond had been due to give evidence in the US Anti-Doping Agency's case against Landis.)

The abuse he suffered as a child is not something LeMond has discussed much in public, and so it is up to amateur psychologists to speculate on how significant it was to his subsequent career. As a cyclist, he was a prodigy – a physical freak with a lung capacity that dwarfed even other gifted athletes. At 22 he was world road race champion; in 1984, in his first Tour de France, he was third, and a year later second, despite his efforts being focused on helping his teammate, the great Frenchman Bernard Hinault, to victory.

Hinault promised to repay LeMond in 1986 by helping him become the first ever English-speaking Tour winner, only to then go back on his word. The formidable Frenchman attacked LeMond repeatedly, driving the American to the brink of a nervous breakdown, amid dark rumours of LeMond's food being poisoned, or his bike sabotaged. Eventually, and despite all of these shadowy goings on, LeMond prevailed, winning in Paris while Hinault claimed that his aggressive riding had been to nullify the threat of his rivals, and to add lustre to LeMond's eventual victory. To which most observers responded: yeah, right.

The following April, LeMond almost died. He was on a hunting outing in California when his brother-in-law mistook the champion cyclist for a turkey – as LeMond would later joke – and peppered his body with lead. More than 40 pellets lodged in his abdomen, his right lung collapsed, he lost 65% of his blood, and, as LeMond says, "if it wasn't for the helicopter (which transported him to hospital], I would have been dead". To this day, five pellets remain lodged in his heart lining, five in his liver.

A few weeks after the accident, LeMond was sacked by his French team. There is a parallel here – one of many – with Armstrong, who, as he fought what most expected to be a losing battle with cancer, was visited by his French team, who attempted to "re-negotiate" his contract. Armstrong never forgave them. Indeed, another of his feuds – with the French – perhaps has its origins in this incident.

Ahead of this summer's Tour, and Armstrong's comeback, it is instructive to look back 20 years, at LeMond's return to the Tour – not least in identifying other parallels with Armstrong's comeback. The year after his hunting accident was a write-off, but in 1989 he returned to Europe, with a small Belgian team, and began the Giro d'Italia – his first three-week tour in three years.

Similarly, Armstrong returned to a Grand Tour at this year's Giro, riding consistently, but hardly spectacularly, to 12th overall: a respectable performance, but one that doesn't suggest he will be in contention to win an eighth Tour. Two decades ago, LeMond suffered through the Giro, with a chink of light only appearing on the penultimate day, when he placed second in a time trial. Then, as now, nobody imagined the American would be a contender when the Tour began a few weeks later.

"I hadn't been paid all year," LeMond tells me in Coventry. "Before (April's] Liege-Bastogne-Liege I went out on the Friday night, drank a lot, I had a hangover on the Saturday, and refused to ride (on the Sunday]. I went home to the States and for three weeks I didn't ride. I went to the Giro and lost eight minutes on the first day. I lost 17 minutes another day and that night I phoned my wife and broke down crying. I was ready to quit; I was finished with cycling."

But his second place in the time trial "gave me confidence," he says, and he travelled to France in a more positive frame of mind. He still hadn't received a penny from his team, but, remarkably, he managed to stay with Fignon through the mountains and began the final stage, a 24.5km time trial into the heart of Paris, 50 seconds down on general classification. It was a deficit just about possible to claw back – but it was an order as tall as the Eiffel Tower.

What happened then was extraordinary. LeMond, using revolutionary new "aero-bars" – which gave him a position similar to a downhill skier – started in front of Fignon, and from the first kilometres it was clear that he was flying. Fignon, by contrast, looked dreadful – he shifted on his saddle, as though he couldn't get comfortable (he later revealed he was suffering from horrendous saddle sores).

On the Champs Elysées, as LeMond waited for Fignon, watching the Frenchman's time on the giant clock as it ticked beyond his own for those 50 seconds, and then on for another eight, the Tour witnessed scenes that still stand as among its most iconic: the sight of LeMond, bottle of water in hand, watching first in hope, then in eye-popping disbelief, and then in wonder, as he realised that he had stolen the Tour from Fignon.

When Fignon crossed the line he slumped to the ground and wept – and France wept with him. It was the closest they had come since Hinault's victory in 1985; and 24 years on, they are still waiting for the next home win. "I know it destroyed him," says LeMond now. There is also an argument that it inflicted a mortal wound to the psyche of a country.

Another poignant note to the 20-year anniversary is the recent news that Fignon is battling advanced cancer. As this year's Tour starts, the 48-year old will begin a course of chemotherapy. "I will fight," he said. "But I am not scared of death."

LeMond remains engaged in a different fight; one that isn't so critical, but which does appear to have drained some of the life from this most engaging and animated of characters. For more than two hours LeMond talks in a café in Coventry, until he is eventually dragged out the door by his wife, Kathy; he is good-humoured, but he is drawn back, repeatedly, to the subject of doping – and to Armstrong.

Others within the sport – including young stars like Mark Cavendish – are adamant that the doping culture is being eradicated, and that the bad days of the 1990s – when the scourge of EPO was at its zenith – are history. For many, there is certainly much to be optimistic about, not least in teams like Cavendish's Columbia squad, and David Millar's Garmin team, which LeMond acknowledges. "These guys are making a big effort," he says.

But he remains haunted by his insistence that the widespread abuse of EPO effectively ended his career – that in the early 1990s he just couldn't keep up any more, never mind win. "The riders were willing participants (in the doping culture]," he says, "but only because they're convinced that's the way they have to do it. I believe a big percentage, if they knew the tests were going to detect cheats, and that they'd receive meaningful punishments, they wouldn't do it."

It is a conciliatory remark, perhaps something to build on, but 20 years after his remarkable comeback, and his victory in the closest ever Tour de France, it is worth recalling, and celebrating, LeMond's triumph, while at the same time mourning the fact that he will not be present at this year's race, nor even watching at home in Minneapolis. "My love of the sport has been taken away," he says. "I'll avoid it. It's too painful to watch."

RUNNERS AND RIDERS
THOUGH the return of Lance Armstrong will grab the headlines, the legendary American starts next month's Tour de France with a handicap. For when the world's greatest cycling event gets under way in Monaco on Saturday, seven-times champion Armstrong will definitely be playing second fiddle to Astana team leader Alberto Contador.

Armstrong pledged to win the Tour on his return to racing in January almost five years after his retirement, but he will now play the role of "super domestique", basically an assistant rider, to 2007 Tour winner Contador, who was crowned the new Spanish time trial champion on Friday.

The bookmakers' hot favourite Contador, the only man to win the Tours of France, Spain and Italy, will also be assisted by American Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloeden of Germany, who both have podium finishes to their names in the Tour.

Despite recent financial problems, the Astana team will definitely compete in the world's most gruelling cycling race consisting of 21 stages over 2,200 miles in 22 days.

Contador has all the advantages as team leader, but if he falters, Armstrong will surely step up and that's why the bookmakers have him as 4-1 second favourite. Australia's Cadel Evans, who held the yellow jersey for five stages last year, and Andy Schleck from Luxembourg are the most likely other winners.

Yet again the Tour starts under a drug-induced cloud. Spanish cyclist Alejandro Valverde, winner of the traditional Tour warm-up, the Dauphine Libere, was left out of the Caisse d'Epargne team due to the two-year suspension imposed on him by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) on the grounds that he had violated the International Cycling Union anti-doping regulations. This year's Tour passes through Italy and under CONI rules, Valverde is banned from competing in Italy.

It is further proof that those who say the Tour will never be free of drugs and their ramifications may well have a point.