In the world of sports it is so easy to look at an athlete — one of our heroes — and think how he has it all. Life is good. And how incredible it would be to live in that person’s world for just one moment.
For American cycling fans, particularly in the 1980s and early ‘90s, Greg LeMond is one of those heroes.
To Lance Armstrong fans this might be blasphemy, but simply stated: Greg LeMond put American cycling on the world map.
In 1986, after finishing third and second the previous two years, respectively, LeMond won the grueling and then-obscure sport to Americans, the Tour de France. He became the first American to win the three-week cycling event.
In 1989, two years after a near-fatal accidental gunshot wound, LeMond won his second Tour by a miniscule 8 seconds. He successfully defended a year later. He remains one of only eight cyclists to have won the Tour at least three times.
He also won the World Championships three times and was the
Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year in 1989.
For any kid on two wheels or any wannabe weekend cyclist, Greg LeMond was the ultimate of heroes in the United States.
“I was one of those guys who looked like he had the perfect life,” LeMond, 47, told a group of about 300 people last Thursday at the Sunflower House Lionheart Luncheon in Kansas City, Kan.
LeMond’s life, unbeknownst to anyone, though, was far from perfect. There was another side to his story; a side so private that LeMond kept it locked in the back of his mind, away from even the people closest to him. Frankly, for the better part of 15 years or so, LeMond kept the secret so buried that he nearly forgot about it.
As a boy, LeMond was curious and adventurous. In his first few years, living near Los Angeles, he swam in the sewers around his house. He was 5. Two years later, when the family moved to Lake Tahoe, LeMond realized quickly that he loved speed.
For years, he wanted to be a downhill skier. In fact, he first got into cycling because a ski instructor told him it would be the best way to stay in shape for skiing during the off-season.
But along the way, something horrific happened.
Around his pre-teen years, LeMond was sexually abused by one of his father’s friends, who stayed often with the LeMond family. Today, LeMond can’t really tell you exactly how old he was when it happened or how long the abuse lasted, but he was about 11 or 12. The abuse ended around the same time that LeMond saw his mom throw his dad’s possessions out of a window, yelling how she wanted him and all of his “deadbeat friends out of here.”
LeMond immersed himself in cycling. And he was good. Very good. He won junior events. He beat adults as a junior. He was so good that he signed his first professional contract at the age of 19.
Being goal-oriented, LeMond set his sights on winning everything from world championships to the Olympics to the Tour de France. Thoughts of the horrific events of his childhood were forgotten. Cycling filled the void in the boy’s heart. Along the way, he married Kathy. Yep, life was good.
When he won the Tour in ’86, though, at what should’ve been the happiest time of his cycling life, those wretched memories came on harder than a chasing peloton. It hit him when he was standing on the podium, wearing the event’s leader’s traditional yellow jersey.
“I thought how I was the first American to win the Tour,” LeMond said, speaking about the abuse to a large group for the first time since mentioning it during the 2007 doping trial of American cyclist Floyd Landis. “Then it suddenly hit me, ‘What if this guy comes out and outs me?’ Rational thoughts didn’t come into play.”
For more than 15 years after that, the publicly successful LeMond endured a private hell.
He went into depression. In early 1987, he broke his wrist. Later that year, in July, his brother-in-law accidentally shot him in the back while they were hunting. LeMond lost 75 percent of his blood — blood that had been conditioned for a world-champion cyclist, one lung collapsed and two ribs cracked.
In just two months, LeMond went from the 148-pound cyclist with five percent body fat to a 121-pound comeback cyclist with 18 percent body fat. Even though, by his own admission, he started racing too soon after the accident, he won the Tour de France in remarkable fashion in 1989. A month later, he won the World Championships. He won the Tour again in 1990.
To outsiders whenever he won, LeMond appeared either humble or arrogant. (There’s a fine line in the persona of the two.) Because of the abuse, his persona actually was something completely different.
“I never felt worthy of a Tour de France victory,” he says, “I never felt worthy of an award from
Sports Illustrated. People thought I was humble or whatever. I was ashamed. I could barely accept any kind of applause or congratulations.”
LeMond retired from racing in 1994, but his troubles continued.
Greg and Kathy’s oldest of three children, son Geoffrey, rebelled against his famous father and went into his own dark despair, to the brink of suicide. Greg’s secret-induced slide worsened. He wanted to tell Kathy and Geoffrey what had happened, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Ashamed, he wanted to run away. Five years ago, he did just that for three months. As he says, he tried to “self-sabotage” his life. Finally, sensing Kathy was going to divorce him, LeMond came clean. He told her everything, or at least as much as he could remember. He moved back home and went through a year of intense therapy.
“After years of carrying the guilt and shame, I finally realized that the abuse wasn’t my fault,” said LeMond. “I was just a kid.”
Through therapy, the LeMond family — including other son Scott and daughter Simone — is becoming a thriving family that Greg never had.
And, maybe somewhat ironically, about 18 months ago, Geoffrey, now 24, got Greg on a bike again.
“(Cycling) literally saved my life,” Greg says. “Cycling has brought my son into a new life and we’ve connected just by riding. It’s been an amazing voyage for me and it’s been the best period in my life.”
In addition to his own cycling and fitness businesses, LeMond is currently helping launch an interactive Web site, 1in6.org, which will help other men deal privately with sexual abuse that they’ve been too ashamed to tell anyone about. (Conservative estimates, according to LeMond, are that one out of six men has experienced sexual abuse.)
“This will allow men to go in in layers and find counselors, either online or over the phone,” said LeMond. “It’s probably the best way to get through to men.”
When you meet LeMond and hear his story, not only the abuse, but also coming back from the gunshot wound and the family issues, and you see the sincerity in his eyes, you realize that he’s what a hero should be.
As I’ve written this column, I’ve come to understand that Greg LeMond is still a hero. But now, through his revelation and the openness he’s showing, he’s a different kind of hero. He’s a bigger hero than he was as a cyclist. He’s now one who’s showing he’s human while trying to help others.
“My life wasn’t a storybook, it wasn’t a Cinderella story, it’s not what I told everybody,” LeMond says. “I look forward to my life now as a complete person.
“For me there’s nothing to be ashamed about anymore. … Now I’m proud of what I’ve done.”
For more info about the Sunflower House, visit www.sunflowerhouse.org. To contact Matt, go to MattFulks.com.