WIDENING MARGINS
‘I was sure I had won the Tour’ – Laurent Fignon
20 July
Stage 18, Bourg d’Oisans – Villard-de-Lans, 56 miles
‘WE ARE ADVERSARIES. We’ll never be great friends, but we’ll talk to each other now and again. There is no animosity.’
Laurent Fignon’s words about his relationship with Greg LeMond – delivered to Channel 4’s Paul Sherwen in the evening glow of the terrace of Fignon’s Alpe d’Huez hotel – suggested something of a charm offensive after the ugly nature of his public pronouncements over the previous days. Was this an attempt to heal the growing rift between the two top riders? Or was it designed to project a more conciliatory, less combative public image, in the process appearing more media-friendly?
If it was the latter, it didn’t last long. The next morning, as he descended the steps of the Hotel La Belle Aurore and climbed into the back of his team car to drive down the mountain to the day’s start in Bourg d’Oisans, Fignon appeared in less outgoing mood. On shutting the car door, and despite the decidedly clement temperatures, he immediately wound the window right up – a barrier of silence between the painfully private man and the prowling, prying press corps.
By contrast, in the back of his own team car, Greg LeMond’s guard appeared to be down – as was his window. The conversation was perfectly audible. Chewing his thumb, he asked some – possibly rhetorical – questions of José De Cauwer and his Coors Light boss Len Pettyjohn in the front. Uncertainty was hanging in the air. And LeMond’s nerves weren’t eased when the car headed back down the mountain, revisiting the scene of his pain the previous afternoon.
This wouldn’t be a day for either man to simply sit tight. That tactic suited neither. The final-day time trial was playing on both their minds. Fignon had to expand his lead to a defendable, safe amount; LeMond had to make sure that whatever his adversary’s lead was come the morning of the Paris stage, it had to give him something to realistically attack on the streets of the French capital. Twenty-six seconds was satisfactory as a carrot, but a target of several seconds fewer would be even better. Matching, or eclipsing, Fignon’s time into Villard-de-Lans was crucial.
The main contenders would be keeping their powder dry for later in the stage, so a break over the Côte de Laffrey – one led by Fagor’s Laurent Biondi and including two stage winners in Robert Millar and Pascal Richard – was kept on a long leash. This breakaway had dissolved by the time the race arrived at the foot of the Côte de Saint-Nizier. By then, the main contenders weren’t exactly jockeying for position so much as being swept along by the pace-setting PDM juggernaut. The team’s target, alongside trying to break the occupants of the top three GC places, was to reel in Luis Herrera, a remnant of the previous break who had stayed out front. But just as the group was about to absorb the Colombian, one of their number launched a devastating attack. It was an unlikely attacker. It was the yellow jersey. He was off and away.
‘My legs had suddenly begun to feel like they used to when I was younger,’ Fignon later wrote. ‘Rooks and Theunisse and the PDM team were setting a searing pace, with no idea that I was about to be the beneficiary. I caught everyone napping and although LeMond and Delgado worked together, they couldn’t keep up. It was an example of my favourite tactic: use a situation in the race to take my opponents by surprise.’
Fignon allowed himself a long, lingering look back down the mountain. It was a satisfying sight. The rest were floundering and he was riding like a true Tour statesman. This was a classic show of strength from Fignon, a measure that he could justifiably be mentioned in the same breath as the greats. It was the way that someone like Eddy Merckx would have ridden if he were leading the race. The Cannibal wouldn’t have been content to sit on wheels and defend his position. He would have added a sheen of flair to any victory by riding to extend his lead. Not showboating; simply stressing his own dominance.
Three men reacted to Fignon’s attack – Delgado, LeMond and Theunisse. The first four on the road were the first four in the GC. The Spaniard was doing the majority of the chasing, the other two happy to be given an escorted ride back towards Fignon. After an extended period of high-tempo riding, though, Delgado swung out to the left-hand side, having had enough of unilaterally pulling LeMond and Theunisse along. At that moment, LeMond reached down to his shoes as if attending to an errant pedal clip, presumably hopeful that Theunisse would then take up the running in the pursuit of a podium place on the Champs-Élysées. But Theunisse refused to take the bait. He knew the other two riders needed to make contact with Fignon more than he did. The three of them then all sat up and exchanged glances. A game of bluff where no game of bluff should be. These were riders who all needed to improve their current standings, who needed to retrieve time either on each other or on Fignon’s yellow jersey.
Instead, while each showed their reluctance to take the mission on, Fignon was actually increasing his advantage. Delgado blinked first, aware that he was the one with the biggest deficit to overhaul should he believe that the ultimate glory was still possible. Off he flew again, an acceleration fuelled by anger and frustration. Suddenly, having just protested about how fatigued they were, LeMond and Theunisse found their legs and were right on Delgado’s tail as ever.
For all intents and purposes, that could have been the moment that the overall victor was decided. It wouldn’t have been a concession as such, but a display of brinksmanship that could have handed Fignon an unassailable lead. It still might have done. All the workload was placed at Delgado’s door, rather than the effort being shared three ways. Phil Liggett was certainly a believer in the moral responsibility the other two should have shouldered. ‘It was the moment that LeMond should have paid up and taken his share of the pace-making,’ argued the veteran broadcaster.
Fignon wasn’t about to complain. He was too busy tackling the steep slopes of the Côte de Saint-Nizier, climbing at an extraordinary 19mph. His performance bore all the hallmarks of a deserving champion, one who had taken the race on at various junctures. He rolled over the summit 15 seconds up on the three behind; Theunisse mysteriously found his legs 200 yards from the banner and led Delgado and LeMond over, in the process bagging, of course, all available King of the Mountains points.
Down in the valley on the other side, Raúl Alcalá led Sean Kelly and other riders up to the LeMond group. If Fignon was at all nervous about the gathering storm that was this enlarged bunch, his riposte was his superb descending. So imperious were his top-speed skills that the gap between him and the others soon lengthened to 45 seconds. He was flying along for everything he could get, for every second he could plunder and add to LeMond’s deficit.
As he embarked on the three-mile climb to Villard-de-Lans, Fignon’s lead had flared out to 52 seconds which, added to his overnight lead of 26 seconds, meant he had accumulated a virtual lead over LeMond of well in excess of a minute. Yes, there were still two stages before the Paris time trial, but if he reached the capital with this kind of advantage ahead of a measly 15-mile run-out against the clock, the title was certain to be his.
As it was, that lead of 52 seconds would be halved by the finish line, a combination of three things: Fignon tackling a headwind without the protection of others; his body beginning to tire after superhuman efforts on successive days; and the belated momentum of the chase group.
As he approached the finish, Fignon didn’t care. He was half a mile ahead and was still going to add a significant chunk of time to his lead. For a man not unconditionally loved by the French public, the reception as he negotiated the final left-hand bend was markedly uninhibited. He seemed to have finally won their hearts – or, at least, the hearts of those assembled here at Villard-de-Lans. A French Tour victory, on the 200th anniversary of the Revolution, appeared to be the necessary currency for new-found popularity.
Crossing the line, Fignon – almost always the little black cloud to LeMond’s ray of sunshine – was joy unconfined. He excitedly raised his arms and flashed wide-palm waves to the crowd. It seemed that this was judgement day, the stage on which the destiny of this zigging, zagging, topsy-turvy race was finally decreed. ‘He knows that today he’s won the Tour de France,’ declared Phil Liggett in his commentary box. ‘I’m sure of that.’ No one in Villard-de-Lans, or watching on television, was inclined to disagree. It did seem like the most rational conclusion to make, the last time-check putting his overall advantage at comfortably more than a minute.
Certainly, according to Bjarne Riis’s autobiography, that was the unequivocal feeling within the Super U camp. ‘The Frenchman was all smiles at the dinner table that evening,’ the Dane wrote. ‘He’d got through the mountains well, despite the competition from LeMond, and was now in a very good position to win the Tour de France. “I should win if I can keep riding like I am now,” he announced confidently.’
His team-mates, perhaps misguidedly, started to let their minds wander towards matters financial. ‘At the hotel, the others on the team had started to work out what Fignon winning the Tour would mean for us in terms of prize money. The win would net him 1.5 million kroner (£123,500), which would be shared out between the riders and team staff.’ They dared to dream, when perhaps they would have been better advised to keep their counsel.
There was no such euphoria in the ADR camp. As he received his post-stage massage from his soigneur Otto Jacome, LeMond spoke to ABC. It was the most sombre, most sober interview he would give in the entire three weeks of the race. Where his eyes normally flashed with excitement, that evening they were flecked with sorrow as he contemplated the Tour’s final day denouement. ‘If it was a 50km time trial,’ he reasoned, ‘there would be some good hope. It’s still not over, but it’s less likely today. I’ve done my best but Fignon yesterday and today has been extremely strong.’
There would have been even less hope without the collective effort of the chase group on that final climb. And it was an effort that would have reduced, if not burst, Fignon’s bubble that night. A margin of 50 seconds should still have been sufficient going into the 15-mile final-day time trial, but it would be unnatural if some nagging doubts, however small, didn’t remain. One thing in particular was tormenting the race leader, as Sean Kelly explains.
‘I remember Fignon saying to me many times, during the Tour and after, “You guys at PDM were riding for Greg LeMond.” When Fignon went on the attack, it was Rooks and Theunisse who did the chasing. I said, “No, there was no agreement.” Years later, when we had both retired and were working for Eurosport, he said, “Now you can tell me the truth. Were you really working with Greg in that Tour?” “I can tell you the truth. And, as I told you before, there was never any agreement between us.”
‘It was just that Rooks and Theunisse were strong in the mountains and that Greg worked his tactics very well. He just followed them and they did a lot of the chasing work. Look at the footage of some of the mountain stages. You can see that it was Theunisse and Rooks, and maybe some of the other guys in the team like Alcalá, who were doing the pace-setting on the climbs. I remember on a number of occasions Fignon did attack because he was the better one in the mountains, but he never got any great advantage from all of the attacks. PDM were the ones securing the pace and doing the chasing, and Greg worked it very well. But you can see why Fignon was asking the question.’
Kathy LeMond’s perspective of that stage is in stark contrast to that of Fignon. The complete opposite, in fact. ‘That was a weird day. There was collusion on that day with PDM against Greg. And, oh my God, was Greg furious. Nobody would work with him.’ She’s referring to the reluctance of Theunisse to do his share on the front of the three-man group as they made their way along the floor of the valley with around 15 miles left. As Cycling Weekly’s Keith Bingham opined, ‘If only Theunisse had worked with them they may have got Fignon back.’ But by this point, the Dutchman knew a podium place was almost certainly beyond him and so chose to move to the front of the trio only when they approached a summit, allowing him to gather as many King of the Mountains points as were available and at least cement his possession of that jersey.
The fear of collusion – highly unlikely after LeMond had left PDM with such a sour taste in his mouth – indicated how brittle Fignon might have been, despite that reassuring lead he had. Andy Hampsten again indicates how the Frenchman was the weaker one psychologically. ‘He was trying to fill five pages in L’Equipe with “I have it in the bag” and “This time I’ve got the American”. When he was trading blows with LeMond and gaining 20 seconds, he gave enormous significance to it. He wanted to be the master of the game and Greg knew that. As we Americans say, if you’re going to swing your stick, you need a really big stick. Don’t take a little penknife out and start swinging that in a gunfight. With Greg knowing him so well psychologically, he loved those back-and-forth battles. It was fun for him.’
For all Fignon’s comments to the contrary (‘I was sure I had won the Tour’), there were still several variables that could decide the final result. And, behind the mask, he knew this. One hundred and seventy-two miles still remained. One hundred and seventy-two miles where something untoward might well occur. A crash. A puncture. An illness. Perhaps even the emergence of a boil in a delicate place.
Stage 18
1. Laurent Fignon (Super U/France) 2:31:28
2. Steven Rooks (PDM/Netherlands) +24”
3. Gert-Jan Theunisse (PDM/Netherlands) same time
4. Marino Lejarreta (Paternina/Spain) same time
5. Sean Kelly (PDM/Ireland) same time
General classification
1. Laurent Fignon (Super U/France) 80:26:39
2. Greg LeMond (ADR/USA) +50”
3. Pedro Delgado (Reynolds/Spain) +2’28”
4. Gert-Jan Theunisse (PDM/Netherlands) +5’36”
5. Charly Mottet (RMO/France) +7’29”