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Greg LeMond may be the greatest comeback story in sports. Winner of the 1983 World Cycling
Championship at age 22, he was the first American to break into the top ranks of what had
been an insular, European sport. When he won the Tour de France in 1986, it looked like he
would dominate cycling for years.
Then, in 1987, he was wounded in a hunting accident. More than his career was at stake.
Peppered with shotgun pellets, he lost massive amounts of blood, and nearly lost his life
too. It took two years, but he returned to the top in spectacular fashion with an
eight-second victory in the 1989 Tour de France—the closest finish in the history of the
event. The achievement earned him Sports Illustrated’s Athlete of the Year award, a
singular honor for a cyclist. In 1990, he won the Tour a third time.
It’s rare to have top U.S. riders assembled in one place, but recently at Wheat Ridge
Cyclery (near Denver, Colorado) they gathered to sign autographs, then amuse and inspire a
crowd of more than 1,000 enthusiasts. The event, dubbed Pro Night, was
also a fund-raiser for Colorado’s Front Rangers Cycling Club, which introduces
underprivileged youth to the sport. Now that’s motivational.
Here are these stars’ stories, along with some lessons that apply to all of us:
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Wheat Ridge Cyclery Pro Night |
Wheat Ridge Cyclery, the bike shop that hosted Greg LeMond and other cycling stars
at the recent Pro Night, is owned by Ron Kiefel, a former pro who rode the Tour de
France seven times. Wheat Ridge Cyclery is not only the #1-ranked bike shop in the
U.S., it’s also a museum of the sport. The walls are covered with autographed
jerseys, pictures of Kiefel and his teammates in the Tour de France, and cycling
trophies from exotic Belgian, French and Italian races.
Along with LeMond, Dunlap, Vaughters and Grewal, this year’s Pro Night also
featured former racer and TV personality Bob Roll and two-time Tour de France
stage winner Davis Phinney. In February, the shop hosted Gary Fisher, mountain
bike pioneer, for another packed evening. Check http://www.ridewrc.com for details of
upcoming events. |
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—F.M.
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Greg LeMond
What did he overcome?
LeMond brought
American values and ideas to the European-dominated sport of cycling. For instance, he
ushered in the era of million-dollar contracts for top racers, many of whom had been paid
poorly and were expected to race for the love of the sport. His $5.5 million contract with
Z, a French children’s clothing manufacturer, brought American sports salaries to cycling.
LeMond was famous for overturning traditional training principles, too. On rest days during
major tours, the Europeans rode 3 or 4 hours, believing that relaxing would take the snap
out of their legs. LeMond took a one-hour ride, then played golf all afternoon. The next
day, rested and de-stressed, he’d hammer his competition.
Take-home lesson:
“Everyone is
different,” LeMond said. “I had to do it my way. If I had raced and lived the way the
Europeans wanted me to, I wouldn’t have lasted long in the sport.”
Alison Dunlap
What did she overcome?
Dunlap, a mountain bike racer, has already made the U.S. Olympic
team for the 2000 Sydney Games. Mountain biking requires superb bike-handling skills and
the balance of a tightrope walker. But Dunlap got her start in bicycle road racing, in
which such skills are secondary to power and speed. She left road racing “because I got
tired of getting knocked down in a big pack. I figured it would be easier to dodge rocks
and trees.” She took her lumps in her first two seasons as she struggled to adjust to the
demands of the off-road game. But her versatility was evident when she won the 1999 U.S.
national championship in cyclocross, a sport that combines riding on dirt and difficult
terrain with running and carrying the bike over obstacles. In addition, a ’cross bike has
a road bike’s skinny tires and drop bars which make staying upright in roots, mud and ruts
even more onerous.
Take-home lesson:
It’s important to try new things and adaptability is often an advantage.
“The Olympic mountain bike course (in Sydney) is great for a former road rider like me,”
Dunlap said. “It has short, power hills that take about a minute to climb and it’s
constantly up, down or around corners. I’ll be able to use my mountain bike as well as my
road skills.”
Alexi Grewal
What did he overcome?
Grewal’s lanky frame was perfect for the long climbs of his native
Colorado, but his sprint at the end of a race was suspect. Grewal knew that the 1984
Olympic road race course in Los Angeles wasn’t sufficiently difficult to break up the
field. The race would probably come down to a sprint after more than 100 miles in the
heat, so he worked all spring and summer to improve his speed. Sure enough, he escaped
with Canadian super-sprinter Steve Bauer—and nipped him at the line for the gold medal.
Take-home lesson:
Work hard on your weaknesses and they’ll become strengths. Grewal is one
of the great iconoclasts in sport. When people told him he couldn’t sprint, it merely
increased his determination to prove the naysayers wrong.
Jonathan Vaughters
What did he overcome?
Another in a long line of Colorado climbers, Vaughters grew up
idolizing Grewal. After some promising results in the early 90’s, Vaughters accepted a pro
contract from a small Spanish team. He didn’t know that it was woefully underfunded and
the owners were allegedly drug smugglers. At one point, the team manager took Vaughters’
bike and buried it in a muddy field so he couldn’t race. Vaughters found out where his
bike had been interred, dug it up, hosed it off, and raced anyway. In the ’99 Tour de
France, racing on the team of eventual American winner Lance Armstrong, Vaughters crashed
out in an early stage, but came back to win the premier American climbing event, 28 miles
up Colorado’s 14,200-foot Mount Evans.
Take-home lesson:
Never give up. Stranded in Spain with no bike, no salary and little
command of the language, Vaughters didn’t get depressed. He just carried on with his job,
earned some hard-fought wins and parlayed them into contracts with teams that actually
paid his salary.
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