LeMond Gets $5.7-Million Salary From French Team

Greg LeMond, the newly crowned world cycling champion and two-time Tour de France winner, has agreed to a three-year $5.7-million contract with a combined French team.

An international bidding war sparked by the most dramatic Tour de France finish in history has elevated LeMond to the same tax bracket as America’s highest-paid baseball, football and basketball players.

LeMond will be paid $1.8 million in 1990, which gives him a higher salary than Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway. Elway, in the middle of a six-year $12.7-million pact, earns $1.45 million next year.

LeMond’s salary this year was reported between $500,000 and $750,000.

The contract with two merged French teams, Z and Fagor, will be guaranteed by a bank letter of credit.

In addition, LeMond will enter six U.S. races in a Denver-based Coors Light jersey.

The brewery paid LeMond an estimated $225,000 as a co-sponsor this season. The final figure has not been worked out for next year but could be lower because LeMond will probably not ride in this country’s biggest race, the Tour de Trump.