Greg LeMond has been shot with pellets, verbally attacked by cycling peers and was nearly beaten to his first Tour de France win by a rival who he considered a brother.<\/p>\n
Little wonder there were years when he did not have faith in the sport and times he turned his back on it.<\/p>\n
But he is following the modern peloton and is a big fan of Tadej Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s such a natural talent, the proof has been [there] from the day he got into cycling,\u201d LeMond told France 2 TV show Velo Club Sunday in Paris. \u201cI like him as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he treats the riders fairly, I think he\u2019s a good representation for cycling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love his attitude, he supports his wife [Ur\u0161ka Zigart], she\u2019s a racer. He\u2019s a good example for cycling,\u201d the three-time Tour de France winner added.<\/p>\n
The 65-year-old previously praised Poga\u010dar\u2019s all-round capabilities and called him \u201cthe biggest talent since Merckx\u201d in a 2023 interview with Velo.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI think the first time he won the Tour, I was blown away by his talent, he was 21 years old,\u201d he said of Poga\u010dar\u2019s 2020 triumph, ahead of the broadcast of stage 21. \u201cI was hoping for a little better battle with Vingegaard [in recent years \u2013 ed], but even then I saw Poga\u010dar seemed to improve.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like he\u2019s in the era like Hinault was with Eddy Merckx, and I hear a lot of people comparing him to Eddy Merckx. There\u2019s only one Eddy Merckx in all of history.\u201d<\/p>\n Today marks precisely 40 years since LeMond took America\u2019s first Tour de France victory. \u201cFeels like yesterday for me, but still quite a few years ago. Still good memories though,\u201d LeMond said.<\/p>\n The 1986 edition was one of the most enthralling in the race\u2019s long history. While their La Vie Claire team dominated, teammates LeMond and Bernard Hinault traded the lead and attacks, leading the younger man to wonder if the French hero was holding up his side of the pre-race bargain to work for him.<\/p>\n At moments, it seemed like five-time winner Hinault was doing his best to beat him and add one more victory to his tally. Crossing the line atop Alpe d\u2019Huez hand-in-hand on stage 18 put to bed the idea of that.<\/p>\n \u201cSo the actual agreement for that stage was [team boss] Bernard Tapie who said, \u2018ok, it\u2019s Hinault\u2019s last Tour, he needs to win the stage\u2019. But then he [Hinault] said the race isn\u2019t over until the last time-trial.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, Alpe d\u2019Huez was kind of a relief because I always looked at Hinault as like a big brother. It was a problem trying to compete against each other. Well, I feel like I did my tactic of the day, a Bernard Tapie tactic. That gesture [crossing the line together] was authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n On a big day over the Galibier and Croix de Fer, they put over five minutes into their closest rival on the day, Urs Zimmermann.<\/p>\n LeMond was accidentally shot while hunting in 1987 but returned to the top step of the podium in unlikely circumstances two summers later.<\/p>\n Having been thinking of quitting cycling before the Tour after a woeful Giro d\u2019Italia, he beat Laurent Fignon by eight seconds with a spectacular last day turn-around. His third and final Tour win followed in 1990.<\/p>\n LeMond also lifted the lid on his \u201ccharismatic\u201d La Vie Claire team boss Bernard Tapie, who helped to bring higher salaries and a better structure into the old-fashioned sport: \u201cWe had our differences in 1986, let\u2019s say, but he really brought in professionalism. He wanted riders to make more money, he was extremely creative and a very good businessman.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Californian was well-paid, Tapie was crafty. \u201cHe used me in a way, he told the press how much I was going to get paid, something he never talked about. He said I was making $1 million a year.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t even make one-third of that. In everyone\u2019s mind, I made a million dollars a year \u2013 I remember hearing that Stephen Roche had even signed for a million for one year.\u201d<\/p>\n Pro cycling sure has changed. LeMond would have reason to admire Tadej Poga\u010dar for even more than just his character, talent and riding style.<\/p>\n His estimated salary is a cool nine times what the American says he did not actually receive from Monsieur Tapie.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/is-tadej-pogacar-making-greg-lemond-believe-in-cycling-again\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2223674325-scaled.jpg”] Andy McGrath Updated July 27, 2026 01:27PM Greg LeMond has been shot with pellets, verbally attacked by cycling peers and was nearly beaten to his first Tour de France win by a rival who he considered a brother. Little wonder there were years when he did not have faith in the sport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2064989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2064989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2064989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2064989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2064989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}40 years since America\u2019s first Tour triumph<\/h2>\n
![\"Greg](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/LeMondHinault86-2400x1350-1.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
LeMond\u2019s fragile Alpe d\u2019Huez alliance with Hinault<\/h2>\n
LeMond: I was not cycling\u2019s first $1 million man<\/h2>\n