Greg LeMond’s Changing Story

When I was racing with the Ann Arbor Velo Club during the mid-1990s, Greg LeMond was the star attraction for our summer event, the Tour de Kids, in 1996. It was two years after he retired from the pro peloton.

Back then, the story was that LeMond suffered from a type of mitochondrial disease or disorder that made it more and more difficult for his muscles to function effectively. In May of 1997, an article appeared in Exceptional Parent magazine about LeMond’s involvement with the event, which was a fund-raiser for the J.U.M.P (Juvenile Unknown Mitochondrial Problems) Foundation. In it, they told the story of LeMond’s retirement from cycling:

For LeMond, his 1994 retirement was long in coming. Hints that something was wrong first arose in 1991 when, after leading the Tour de France halfway, he faded and finished seventh. He and his trainers used every available test and training technique to get to the source of his difficulties. The question, however, remained unanswered.

LeMond still could not figure out why his cycling performance was steadily deteriorating. “I was going into a downhill spiral,” he says. “I was totally exhausted all the time. First I thought I was training too hard, then not hard enough. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I really had the best help, the best trainers; but the more I trained, the worse I got.”

Initially, doctors thought his condition was brought on by a severe hunting accident in 1987 which left more than 40 shotgun pellets in his body. Tests showed, though, that this was not the case. “I thought maybe I had some kind of lead poisoning, but I went though all the tests and they came back negative.”

LeMond says that doctors looked at nearly every aspect of his health to see what was wrong. Parents of children affected by the disorder will recognize the frustration LeMond felt in trying to get a diagnosis. “We tried everything, monitored my oxygen intake, but nothing worked.” After exhausting all possibilities, doctors performed a last ditch test: a muscle biopsy. It solved the mystery.

Up until yesterday, I thought that was the story. Then I read articles in Cycling News and VeloNews where LeMond was quoted as saying he quit cycling because of the doping. Because other riders were juicing with EPO for a performance boost that he couldn’t keep up with, what with his natural training techniques and resistance to doing drugs. So, was that story about the mitochondrial problems back in the mid-90s just a cover for an athlete who raced a few years beyond his prime?

Hard to say which is the truth. I thought the mitochondrial problems story was the reason, and then LeMond says otherwise. But maybe the old chap is just suffering from some memory problems, because he was also quoted as telling a story about offering advice to Floyd Landis. This apparently was news to Floyd, who said:

I would ask Satan for advice before calling Lemond.

That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.

And quite honestly, I’m not sure why LeMond is running around trying to curry favor with the folks at WADA. Is he trying to become the next Dick Pound? Because, seriously, there’s already one Dick Pound, and that’s more Pounds than the World Anti-Doping Agency or the sport of cycling needs as it is.

I have no doubt that LeMond is sincerely concerned about the current state of cycling, and would like to do something to improve the state of the sport. But I think he’s going about it all wrong.

First off, the penalties are already too harsh. I find LeMond’s advocacy of even stronger penalties absurd. An athlete should have to sit out from an entire year of competition for missing a random screening, even when the officials failed to inform the athlete that his/her presence was required? That’s ridiculous. Forcing an athlete to sit out for two seasons for a first doping offense? Also ridiculous, but these types of things can and do happen under the current system.

And given that some of the tests and some of the labs aren’t all that stellar in their performance, it’s even more ridiculous to put such extreme penalties on the participants without some sort of accountability or penalties against the labs if they get things wrong.

Most pros are not highly paid, and I would venture a guess that they do not have the resources to fight a doping accusation. Many, when accused, may simply accept the sanction and find another line of work, regardless of whether they had truly been caught red-handed or not.

To forbid accused athletes to race while their anti-doping cases are being decided is especially unfair for those who are innocent, regardless of whether it’s Flo Tenspeed or Floyd Landis. The guilty can — and should — be punished when their guilt is proven. To punish them beforehand is fundamentally unfair and unsporting.

And stop, for a moment, to think about the deterrence factor that these harsher penalties that LeMond advocates might have. If the current draconian system isn’t a deterrent, do you think an even harsher system with more stringent penalties will work any better?

Perhaps it would be better to look around and take a lesson from the big leagues. Granted their anti-doping systems aren’t perfect, but they are a whole lot more rational than the scandal that passes for a system at WADA and its affiliated organizations. The National Basketball Association might be a good place to look for an example of a rational anti-doping program.

Here’s what Pegro Delgado (the winner of the 1988 Tour, a year after LeMond’s brother-in-law pumped the American cycling hero full of birdshot) said to VeloNews:

We have doping rules in cycling, but are they realistic?

Delgado is right to question just how realistic the current rules are. And there’s no doubt that change needs to happen. But it has to be rational and realistic and effective change. LeMond’s ideas about how the sport can be saved have an off-the-cuff feel to them, rather than well-reasoned and well-thought-out strategies.

In LeMond’s last Tour, one of the last stages he actually raced passed through a small town near Brighton called Lewes in East Sussex. And as he and the peloton cruised through town, I imagine that they probably passed the Western Road School. It’s right across the street from Her Majesty’s Gaol — that’s how “jail” is spelled in real English — a place where LeMond would put those who are guilty of doping if he had his way.

I attended the Western Road School for what would be the equivalent of fourth grade in America back in 1969 — the first year Eddy Merckx won the Tour.

My teacher then was the headmaster, Mr. Bristow. He could be very tough on those who shot off their mouths too quickly. “Think before you speak!” he would roar when one of us clearly hadn’t. It’s good advice to remember, whether you’re Greg LeMond or an aging formerly race-fit Cat 3 like myself.