Oh, Yeah, One More Thing

If it's a choice between watching this and the race coverage this weekend, then you should definitely watch the Tour. But if you're feeling ambitious and want to do both, you have an excellent opportunity to learn about pre-Armstrong U.S. cycling before we get too far into the post-Armstong era. Long before Lance got on a bike, Greg LeMond became the first American cyclist able to compete with the best in Europe. And he, too, made an amazing recovery from a near-death event. Greg burst onto the scene as an excellent young rider and became the best in the world as the first American to win the Tour in 1986. The coverage then wasn't nearly what it is now, but we watched every little bit of update we could. Less than a year later, he took a shotgun strike in his chest in a hunting accident and nearly died. After a long, slow recovery, he was on the verge of giving up when he found his form just in time for the 1989 Tour. He traded the lead back and forth with Laurent Fignon and headed into the final stage down 50 seconds. Almost no one gave him a chance to win at that point, but the final stage was a time trial that year. Greg set a Tour record for time trial speed (that stood until last year) and beat Fignon by 58 seconds on the day. His 8 second victory is the closest ever in the Tour and the most dramatic finish ever. It was incredible to watch. He went on to win again in 1990 as well. You have a chance to see this and learn much more about the man this weekend, as OLN is rebroadcasting a number of times the one-hour "Fearless" special it made about LeMond:
Saturday, 12:00 a.m.
Saturday, 6:00 p.m.
Saturday, 10:00 p.m.
Monday, 10:00 p.m.
Sunday (7/23), 10:00 p.m.