A Grand Tour for an American

By B.J. Phillips/Paris

The greatest cycling duel in the 83-year history of the Tour de France ended last week on the Champs Elysees to the unprecedented strains of The Star- Spangled Banner. Greg LeMond, 25, became the first non-European to win the premier race in this most passionately parochial of Old World sports. And the easygoing American did it by triumphing in a fratricidal war with his teammate --and friend--Bernard Hinault, 31, who has become a two-wheeled French national monument. Over 2,542 miles, traversing 76 mountains and hills in the Pyrenees and Alps, covering as much as 160 miles a day in the flats, the two played out a drama of betrayal and reconciliation, and after more than 110 hours of racing in 23 days, just three minutes and ten seconds separated them.

They had nothing in common, really, except the sport. LeMond had grown up in affluence on the California beaches and the snowy slopes of the Sierra Nevada. At 14, he took to cycling to build up his legs for skiing. But that winter it did not snow, and so an obsession was born. In the U.S., cycling is what kids do after Santa Claus brings them a bike and before they get their driver's license. Few of them are aware that the sport's greatest heroes race in teams and can make as much as a star quarterback. A subtle, rolling chess game in which teammates devise strategies to wear out and hold back opponents, share the fatigue of breaking a head wind or control the pace to protect a team leader, cycling is built on intricacies as unknown to most Americans as particle physics.

When LeMond decided to become the world's best, there was but one course to follow. Six years ago, with a new bride and his odd American dream of winning the Tour de France, he moved to Europe for the coaching and conditioning that were available only in the sport's backyard. He did not underestimate the task: "It is as though a Frenchman moved to the United States at age 19, couldn't speak English and tried to make it in baseball."

One person attempted to help: Bernard Hinault, captain of the team that first hired LeMond as a professional in 1980. Hinault, with his terrible Breton temper and maniacal need to win, had given no quarter in a brilliant career that brought him out of a modest village life to wealth and acclaim. He was a relentless attacker who sought to break, not merely beat, his opponents. Yet he took LeMond under his wing, taught him the racer's tactics and dubbed him his successor. Last year the crown prince helped his king to a fifth victory in the Tour de France, settling into second to fend off challengers. When it was over, Hinault vowed, "Next year I will ride for Greg. I will be his second wheel." When the Tour and its 21 teams of ten riders began the counterclockwise circuit of France this July 4, the American was relying on that promise. But LeMond, and perhaps Hinault himself, underestimated the fire within. No man had ever won the Tour six times, and what Hinault called a "record for eternity" began to beckon. On the first day of the climb into the Pyrenees, Hinault suddenly broke away without warning. LeMond, left behind to block Urs Zimmermann, the Swiss rider who eventually finished third, was anguished. He dutifully played the team role, all the while looking over his shoulder for the arrival of the pack and, with it, moral and tactical permission to give chase. The pack never caught up. Hinault had taken over the lead, which is calculated from the cumulative times on each day's course.

They had words that night. It apparently meant little, for Hinault bolted ahead again the next day. But this time he tired, and LeMond overhauled him. "I asked him if I should stay and help him. He said I should follow the others. He's a generous guy." Harmony lasted just two days; then Hinault made his final breakaway--with Zimmermann. "He was trying to crush Greg, to put him away," one teammate said later. Once again LeMond gave chase, and this time when he pulled alongside Hinault, he screamed, "If you continue to race this way, I'm going to quit. You're going to lose it for both of us, and you can just lose it alone."

But LeMond came back the following day and took over the lead for good with another stunning climb through the Pyrenees. The next morning brought the Tour's most memorable moment. The pair broke away together, alone. For 80 miles, there were just the two of them, taking turns breaking the head wind, laboring up mountains, swooping downhill at nearly 70 m.p.h. Like birds in flight, they whirred through the turns, locked back wheel to front wheel, fast and free. Said an official who watched the duet from an accompanying van: "It was symbiosis, it was poetry." Just before the finish, an exhilarated LeMond threw an arm around Hinault, then slowed to let him over the line first by a wheel length.

On still one more day, Hinault tried and failed to overtake LeMond, then finally conceded. Later LeMond would interrupt the savoring of his victory (he will likely make in excess of $750,000 in salary and other fees during each of the next three years). Why, he wondered, had Hinault broken his promise and tried to "deny me the dream of my career"? But the Breton had no apologies. "I do things to the limit," he said. "It's in my guts, a character trait I was born with."

In an odd way, Hinault's challenges served to validate LeMond's achievement. "I have pushed Greg; I have made him go over me. Now after all this, he is capable of competing with anybody, anywhere." The unrelenting competitor had never quite believed that his teammate wanted to win the Tour de France, wanted it in that visceral way that French boys from small villages want it. As much as Hinault wanted it. But when Greg LeMond stood on the victory platform and heard his national anthem, he lowered his head, fighting back tears. Hinault saw the emotion, and his eyes widened. He stared in plain wonder. At that moment, it seemed, he understood at last that here was an American who had dreamed like a Frenchman.