Too Much Time, Not Enough Miles Left for LeMond?

After about 2,000 miles of cycling over the past 22 days, the Tour de France has been reduced to this:

Greg LeMond of Minneapolis, 50 seconds behind Laurent Fignon of France, needs a fantastic finish in today’s 15-mile time trial to win his second title. He needs to make up three seconds a mile against Fignon in the final stage.

His chances, by most accounts, are slim.

“There’s little chance, but I’ll still be going for it,” LeMond said. “I feel good.”

The distance from Versailles to Paris is considered too short for LeMond to overcome the difference, even if LeMond is a better time-trial rider than Fignon, who won the tour in 1983 and 1984.

Earlier in the week, LeMond said he would have a chance if Fignon’s lead was a maximum 30 to 40 seconds.

In the two previous tour time trials this year, LeMond won by an average of 53 seconds. But both were considerably longer--one almost three times the distance--than the Versailles-Paris stage. Also, the final leg is almost flat except for a modest downhill in the first five miles.

LeMond said he will be content with a second-place finish considering that he almost died two years ago when he was shot by a brother-in-law in a hunting accident.

“First time back on the tour since 1986, I can’t complain,” LeMond said.

LeMond is the only U.S. cyclist to win the tour, the world’s most prestigious bicycling race, when he placed first in 1986 after being third and second the two previous years.

He missed the last two tours because of the shooting and other misfortune, such as an emergency appendectomy and shin problems.

“If I get first or second, I think I’ve raced as well as Fignon or (Pedro) Delgado,” LeMond said. “I had no idea I was going to ride this well. I had some hopes I was maybe going to win a stage, maybe a top-20 finish. I was really going to be happy with that.”

Delgado, of Spain, won last year and was third, 2 minutes 28 seconds behind Fignon, entering today’s final stage. He was victim of some misfortune as he arrived 2:40 late for the prologue July 1 in Luxembourg.

If LeMond gains more than 12 seconds today, the race will be the closest in its 86-year history. The smallest previous margin of victory was Dutch rider Jan Janssen’s 38-second win over Belgian Herman van Springel in 1968.

The gap between Fignon and LeMond has never been more than a minute in one of the closest and most exciting tours.

Saturday, all but one of the 138 remaining competitors were credited with the same time as the cyclists rode on a hot afternoon through east-central France.

LeMond was 40th and Fignon 50th on a relaxed day before the finale.

Gianni Fidanza of Italy took the 20th stage, from Aix-les-Bains to l’Isle d’Abeau, a new industrial city outside Lyon. Fidanza won the sprint finish ahead of the pack in 3 hours 26 minutes 16 seconds.

Sean Kelly of Ireland, who recently lost his No. 1 world ranking after seven years, was third.

“It was very frustrating because this was my last chance for a stage win,” Kelly said.

Fignon is on the verge of becoming the sixth rider to win the Tour de France three times and the sixth to win the tours of Italy and France in the same year.

Olympic champion Monique Knol of the Netherlands stopped Jeannie Longo’s winning streak at five as she took the 10th stage of the women’s Tour de France.

However, Longo, of France, held an insurmountable lead with one stage left. She was 16th for the day but in the same time as Knol and had an 8-minute 44-second margin over runner-up Maria Canins of Italy.

Knol, who won the first two stages then fell behind, outsprinted the rest of the pack in a group finish, running the same route as the men but two hours earlier.

However, Knol’s time of 3:16:05, was about 10 minutes faster than the men’s race as the men took their time over the 79-mile course.

Longo, who had won the five previous stages, with Canins second in four of them, should take her third consecutive women’s title today, barring a mishap.

Americans Inga Thompson and Susan Elias were third and fourth, respectively, pacing the United States into the lead in the overall team standings. They held a five-minute lead over Italy based on the top three riders.