
Excerpt from 1986 Velo-News about Greg LeMond’s win at the 1986 Tour de France
After Bernard Hinault was weighed so he could be given his weight in coffee by cycling trade sponsor Cafe de Colombia, it was on to stage 22, a 194km ceremonial march from Clermont- Ferrand to Nevers.
Today’s stage 21 was a hilly one that finished atop the Puy de Dôme—the spectacular dome-shaped volcanic plug in the Massif Central. The Puy de Dôme is a climb of rich symbolism and incident, where Hinault had fancied claiming his first yellow jersey in 1978, where Eddy Merckx had been punched in the kidneys three years earlier. This year, the mountain’s role is to perhaps allow a challenger to make one last, desperate bid for the yellow jersey.
Greg LeMond dropped an injured Bernard Hinault on today’s mountain stage to become the first rider from the United States to wear the yellow jersey of the leader of the Tour de France.
Team 7-Eleven’s sprinter Davis Phinney has dropped out of the Tour after crashing heavily on today’s Stage 15. This leaves the team relying on Phinney’s usual lead-out man Ron Kiefel to contest the sprints. Fortunately, Kiefel has shown that he has the legs for the Tour, narrowly missing a stage win to Peeters on stage 7.
Battered by wind and torrid heat, much of this stage from Carcassonne to Nimes was spent riding in echelons.
After two dramatic days in the Pyrenees that saw a big shake up in the overall standings, today’s stage traveled 154 km across the south of France into the foothills of the Alps.
According to riders interviewed after today’s Stage 10 from Nantes to Futuroscope, the stench was overpowering: a rotten, putrid smell, so bad that several riders looked around, their faces screwing up as though they were sucking on lemons. The peloton watched Greg LeMond, fourth in line, being led back to the pack by a string of his La Vie Claire teammates.