Why they rank here
The rider who made cycling global, LeMond became the first non-European to win the Tour de France in 1986, breaking the sport open to America and beyond. He won three Tours, in 1986, 1989 and 1990, and two World road titles, in 1983 and 1989. His 1989 victory over Laurent Fignon by eight seconds, the closest margin in Tour history, came on the final-day time trial where he used aerodynamic bars and a teardrop helmet to overturn a 50-second deficit, a landmark in the sport's embrace of technology. Extraordinarily, he did it after nearly dying in a 1987 hunting accident that left more than thirty shotgun pellets in his body, including near his heart. LeMond raced clean through the dawning EPO era, and his career stands as both a sporting and a moral high point.
Career profile
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Head-to-head
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