CYCLING : LeMond Hopes to Keep Riding Through DuPont, ’96 Olympics

He is a three-time winner of the Tour de France, twice the world champion and perhaps America’s greatest cyclist.

Yet at 32, Greg LeMond cannot predict how his summer will turn out.

LeMond is one of 112 cyclists embarking on the 12-day, 1,050-mile Tour DuPont, which will start Wednesday with a prologue at Wilmington, Del. It will end May 15 with a 16.6-mile time trial from Kernersville, N.C., to Winston-Salem, N.C.

When asked recently how he will fare in America’s biggest cycling event, LeMond said, “I honestly don’t know. I hope I can do well. I haven’t been feeling as great as I wanted to.”

Can he win a fourth Tour de France, which begins July 2?

“I don’t know,” he said.

But LeMond does know that reports of his imminent retirement are premature. Although his career is on the downside, LeMond said he wants to hang on through the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, when professionals will be allowed to participate.

“The only thing getting me tired of racing is having to live in Europe eight months a year,” he said. “(But) if I have some big setback this year, it might be difficult for me to carry on.”

LeMond had a disastrous year in 1993, dropping out of the Tour of Italy and the Tour de France. He blamed his weakened condition on severe allergies, then returned to Medina, Minn., to recuperate. But while on a training ride in Minnesota, he crashed and suffered a broken wrist, effectively ending his season.

LeMond also suffered financial problems in his family cycling business that resulted in strained relations with his parents.

Now he says he is ready to continue for two more years although he has--as usual--raced poorly in Europe this spring.

“Believe me, if the physical (part) is there, my mental ability is there,” he said. “Last year, I started from ground zero. I’ve done a lot of tests where my (oxygen) uptake is better than it ever has been. I’ve yet to get my weight down to where it used to be. . . . that could hurt my climbing.”