Not Done at 31 : LeMond Might Be Tired, but That Doesn’t Mean He’s Quitting

To the embarrassed kitchen staff, it was an honest mistake.

But to Greg LeMond, it was a disaster when his favorite pair of cycling shoes was baked two years ago during the Tour of Italy.

The kitchen workers were drying the shoes for LeMond after a rainy day’s ride. They forgetfully left them in the oven when preparing dinner, giving new meaning to the term filet of sole.

Funny to others, it was traumatic to LeMond because he uses only one pair for competition and training, despite the millions he earns as cycling’s premier rider.

“Nobody knows how long I spent trying to find a new pair,” LeMond said last spring. “I was just getting used to them . . . and they melted them.”

Now two years later, some suggest the other shoe has dropped.

After quitting the Tour de France in July--the first time he failed to complete a Tour he started--LeMond’s once unassailable reputation has taken a beating. This month, he dropped out the Tour of Britain, and a small race in Belgium, saying he still was reeling from the effects of the Tour de France.

“I came out of the Tour shattered,” he said.

LeMond says he is so tired he would like to end the season in a couple of weeks, but expects to labor through September because of commitments. He could salvage a bit of respect by rallying at the World Championships on Sept. 6 in Valencia, Spain, but says it might be too late for even that.

Thus, a season that started with such promise is ending unfulfilled, prompting rumblings that LeMond, at 31, is finished.

“How am I doing? I don’t know how I’m doing,” he said from his home in Kortijek, Belgium, this week.

What he does know is that winning the Tour de France is a delicate, difficult pursuit. After finishing seventh in 1991, his worst result before this year, LeMond trained as diligently as ever, had one of the finest spring seasons, and then . . .

“Just a few things need to go wrong, and you’re out of the race,” he said.

A month after the Tour, LeMond has not forgotten why he had his worst showing, why a 36-hour ordeal to reach the start of the race in San Sebastian, Spain, crushed him.

His account:

“Everything that could go wrong went wrong in the two days of traveling. I’ve never had anything like it. It’s nobody’s fault. I could have taken a flight nonstop to Spain, and it would have taken an hour and a half to get there, which most everybody did.

“The team wanted me to do a TV show three days before the Tour in Paris. The idea was do the TV show, fly down to Bordeaux, train the next day with the team and be in Spain. I did the TV show but had to take a train there because the truck drivers were on strike. My flight to Bordeaux was canceled because the airlines went on strike. I had to spend the night in Paris and couldn’t sleep. I was nervous. (I) went to bed at 4 (a.m.) and woke up at 6:30.

“Then (I) had to take a train to the south of France. Once I got to Bordeaux, it should have only taken me an hour to drive to San Sebastian, (but) it took five hours--the truck drivers’ strike. It is hard to talk and explain exactly what happened, but anyway, I was already wasted when I started the Tour. I never felt like I was ready for it this year, mentally and physically. I started the race as tired as I’ve ever been. I started off on the wrong side, and continued to get worse, worse and worse, to the point where I basically had to stop.”

Although some thought the veteran of a dozen years of pro cycling might retire after this year’s failure, LeMond said he plans to race at least two more years.

“We’ll see if I’m finished,” he said.

The talk of his imminent demise is frustrating, LeMond said. The European media have painted an imaginary line at 30, he added, casting those over the “age limit” as over the hill.

Said Brian Searchinger, marketing director for LeMond’s American-based interests: “You’d have to say history is against him (winning another Tour), but you’d have to say history is against everything he has done.”

Still, the prime athletes of cycling are in their late 20s or early 30s.

“I’m right in the middle of those,” LeMond said. “There is absolutely no reason my ability has gone down. I know it hasn’t. An athlete’s capacity doesn’t diminish in one year or two years, or even three or four years. I feel relatively young in endurance sports.”

Although the season will not end until October, LeMond already is thinking ahead. After the Tour, he returned to his home in Wayzata, Minn., for three weeks to evaluate what happened and plot a new course for the 1993 Tour.

“As upsetting as his dropping out was, a lot of the frustration goes back to you don’t know where to begin to look almost,” Searchinger said. “It’s such an inexact science. You hardly know why to ask why.

“His training went well. There is no problem with his health. All his blood tests came back negative. Everything seemed to be right.”

Except the vexing trip to San Sebastian, and perhaps LeMond’s preparation. Was he overtrained? Had he entered too many races?

LeMond spent the winter cross-country skiing in the Minnesota woods, and although he was as fit as ever, he added about two pounds of upper-body weight. He said the extra mass hurt his climbing ability. LeMond looked leaden on most of the Tour ascents.

He also rode in 84 races before the Tour, a dramatic increase from seasons when he won the event.

The preparation resulted in a strong spring for the slow-starting LeMond. He looked brilliant in the Paris-Roubaix one-day race, won the 11-day Tour Du Pont and had little trouble with the Alpine climbs of the Tour of Switzerland. But his legs had lost their spring by July.

“I overdid it,” he said.

Next year, LeMond will reduce his frame by riding mountain bikes and road bikes before the season begins in February. He also will cut back his race schedule before the Tour.

LeMond said he probably will not defend his title at the Tour Du Pont, which will be a blow for promoters of America’s most prestigious road race. LeMond said he also will skip the Tour of Switzerland to concentrate on the Tour of Italy a week later.

Miguel Indurain of Spain, winner of the last two Tours, has been a regular at the Tour of Italy, and scored a rare double by winning there and in France this year. The challenging, three-week Italian race is an excellent Tour preparation, LeMond said.

“I’m constantly experimenting and learning,” he said. “As I get older, I’ve always been one who has a hard time reaching a great level of conditioning. So, I tried a lot of training theories.”

Battling back from a gunshot wound--the result of a hunting accident--in 1987 and assorted ailments in 1988, LeMond won the Tour de France in 1989 and ’90.

Now he has the added burden of finding a new team for next season. His long association with Z ends this year, and LeMond is trying to find another corporate sponsor. He is negotiating with a French firm.

“I’m trying to be patient, waiting for our team,” he said. “But my patience is running out.”

LeMond also has fielded offers from other teams, which are undergoing vast changes. A half dozen major sponsors are ending their relationships with cycling teams because of the economic climate.

If all goes as expected, however, LeMond will retain his retinue. He is hoping for a deal that would allow him to keep Z’s team director, Roger Legeay, as well as trainer Otto Jacombe. Legeay would then select the other riders, starting with the nucleus of former Z cyclists.

Whether LeMond can build a team strong enough to challenge Indurain and his Spanish Banesto squad seems unlikely. But LeMond said he is not intimidated.

Of Indurain’s fine performance in the Tour this year, LeMond said: “I haven’t seen anything like it in the history of cycling. But I would never pinpoint it on anything.

“He’s an incredible athlete. It’s hard for me to believe that somebody comes up that great in two years. (But) you see new things in sports all the time.”

LeMond has competed at a high level for most of the last 12 years and now knows what it is like to fall off the pace a bit. He realizes that being the best is tenuous, especially when unforeseen obstacles can wield such influence.

After all, his shoes could be baked. His way to a race could be held up by an airline or truck drivers’ strike. You never know.

“My phone is broken right now,” LeMond said. “We’re supposed to have it fixed today. Something about our cables are getting eaten away by rats.”

Nothing, it seems, is sacred for one of history’s great cyclists.