You don’t want to see the green Irish national jersey of Sean Kelly in your rear view mirror when you are sprinting for the line in the World Championships. Greg Lemond led out this sprint extremely early as he was afraid if Kelly took off he would never catch him. Lemond barely gets an arm up in victory salute it’s so hard and fast. It’s a long, long power sprint from the front and he only knew he had earned his second rainbow jersey when he crossed the line.
Greg Lemond truly earned what must have been his greatest one day victory. His first World Championship title was monumental, it sent a shock wave reverberating around the world, and was the opening salvo for American cyclists racing and actually beating the best. And this victory was after he had been shot with a shotgun! He had to chase down Laurent Fignon, face the tactical disadvantage of Fignon having Claveyrolat as a teammate in the final and having to beat Sean Kelly in a sprint! It is testament to Lemond being a complete cyclist; the brains, the power and the heart.
Back when it took place only weeks after the Tour de France, the World Championship road race was the most prestigious one-day race of the year. It sat squarely in the middle of the racing season. There was no hiding from it. Everyone who raced in the Tour was praying their form who hold, or if they rode badly in the Tour they could claim to be peaking in a few weeks (instead of two months). If riders were not selected for the Tour they would kill themselves to do well enough in other June and July races to be selected for the Worlds.
The 1989 Worlds road race course was too many laps of an exhausting circuit in Chambery, France. Lemond had won the Tour de France weeks before, overcoming the insurmountable lead of Laurent Fignon on the dramatic final TT stage in Paris. Greg was not feeling fit and had to be talked into riding at Chambery. Each lap he wanted to pull off at the pit area and end the suffering, but he didn’t. Only a true professional would say he started to feel better (or “unblocked”, as Lemond put it) in the last third of a race this gruelling. With each hilly lap raced Greg was feeling better, and despite the rain and the climbs, he kept finding a reason not to abandon. This is the fact that stays with me; Greg was ready to drop out of the race as he felt weak (why race if you couldn’t win?) yet he stayed at it, one lap at a time and to his surprise he started to feel better. Better? Amazing to think that struggling to stay in the elite main field, on an extremely hilly circuit course like Chambery, that an athlete would start to feel stronger 200 km into it.
By the bell lap the small break (Steven Rooks: NDL, Dmtri Konyshev: USSR and Thierry Claveyrolat: FRA) was staying away and the decimated field was not going to catch them. The French team captain Fignon ripped off the front of the field, quickly bridging up towards a countryman in the break. He must have taken note of Lemond suffering throughout the day. This was Fignon’s revenge.
As Fignon was closing in on the break he turned and to his horror saw the once-struggling Lemond next to him. If Laurent had dared to even dream of a victory that day, a victory that would help to redeem his crushing loss in the Tour, this was the last man he wanted to see bridge up and join him in the break. But once they joined the break Laurent had a teammate and the tactical advantage went his way. The video tells the rest of the story.
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@Jim Morehouse
"This is one of the best World Championships of all time"
Yeah, it really was a knife fight. You could see that once Kelly arrived everyone but Lemond tried their hand before the finish. Greg kept chasing them down, really showing how strong he was.
I remember when Lemond was a junior and he was really making trouble in your ranks, he may have beaten George Mount in some Nor Cal hill climb and it made everyone think, "jesus, the kid is a junior still, he's going to kill everyone" and he did.
@Steampunk
That 1992 Milan-San Remo would be a worthy video to study. You are so right, Kelly catching Argentin on the descent(!!) and laying some hurt on him. Mmmmmm, that's a man.
Maybe he caught the break on the descent here too? He does just appear out of the rainy mist. yeah, "oh Fuck" in four languages. If Cavendish ever learns these skills he will also depress any break he ever catches up with.
beautiful race...all the way. Fignon digs and comes back, Lemond digs, frank is right, Steve Bauer may have really had the day of his life if it were not for bad luck. Kelly is a stud all the way, but I must say that this race he looked more human.
I love the way they reached down and shifted, flawlessly.
Note the pace too, on steel, downtube shifters, some w/clips...and they are still rolling down @90kph and the sprint was forever!!
Great article and great reminder of Lemonds best one day effort!
@john
Not to drift off topic, but Milan-San Remo 1992. Not a bad salute at the end, either...
You're right, though, about Cavendish. There's nobody really of Kelly's ilk in the peloton these days (go figure). But even the tougher all-rounders, like Boonen or Hushovd or Pozzatto, are impressive in how they can hang with the climbers in order to contest the sprint finish (when they have to be favorites), but I can't see any of them making up the kind of ground that Kelly did in bridging at Chambery or at Milan-San Remo. Maybe Gilbert?
@Jarvis, @john
I bought some Time shoes right after the '89 Tour and the first thing I did was chuck some toes straps around them to look like LeMond. The look of the straps sticking out like that was hypnotic.
I'd be interested to hear more of the "Brancale" theory; his '90 shoes were really cool, and I did notice that the shoes he has here had laces - which the Times, I believe, did not. There are plenty of little hints like those in that point to them not having been time shoes. The Velcro straps didn't seem quite right, and the neither did the round profile from the front.
@mauibike
I remember that, too. Amazing. I just read a bit in Fignon's book that says he noticed that the way Indurain would come back to a break was by waiting until the attacker lowered their speed for to catch their second wind, and at that moment Indurain would bridge up. It seems perhaps that was the same trick LeMond used; just wait until Fignon dropped his speed, and then he bridged.
Kelly must have used his mad wet-descending skills to catch on. He could not climb like those guys. On the other hand, that also explains why he lost some of his punch in the sprint.
@Steampunk
Thats one of my favorites. He's also the only guy ever to make that first rendition of the Festina jersey look good. Sweet lid, too.
@frank
True dat.
@frank
I should have known. You have always been insane.
@Steampunk
magic video. That is so great, I do love Milan-San Remo. Kelly in a helmet? WTF.
Thanks for putting that up.
@john @frank
as frank has said, the toe-strap goes around the shoe as an extra strap. I did the same as Frank with my Time shoes, just because of the look. I have no idea if it made any difference at all. I doubt it.
The "Brancale" theory has sprung from the above picture. Lemond's '89 shoes were never proper Time shoes despite the red and white colours, the straps were wrong for a start and there was no branding. Time did branding.
The straps on the '89 shoe overhang the side/sole of the shoe a lot, just like the '90 Brancale shoe did. If you watch the video I'm fairly certain it shows that, although the heel is definitely Time, the shoe has a white sole and by '89 Time Equipe shoes had black soles. As Frank says, there is also something odd about the toe-box, not round enough, maybe? So I'm sticking to my proto Brancale Theory. Quite possibly the '89 shoes were Brancale shoes made to look like Time shoes for sponsorship purposes? Either way, the '90 Brancale were gash. It was the '90s for fucks sake, what was with the laces and the massive tongue? Add to that their helmets and it's no wonder Brancale aren't around any more,