Lemond Quotes & Sayings

I love downtown Seattle. It's a city that has all of the outdoor activities and is still a very cosmopolitan city. — Greg LeMond

I rode in a nine-day charity ride recently, averaged 43km a day and still finished in the lead group. I'm 38, not quite finished yet. — Greg LeMond

I want to tell the world of cycling to please join me in telling Pat McQuaid to resign. I have never seen such an abuse of power in cycling's history - resign, Pat, if you love cycling. Resign even if you hate the sport. — Greg LeMond

Testing, we will never do enough of it. — Greg LeMond

If Lance is clean, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sports. If he isn't, it would be the greatest fraud. — Greg LeMond

There is no pill, no drug, that can do for you what one hour of exercise can. — Greg LeMond

The physical demands of cycling is that it actually lowers your immune system, and you expose yourself to a tremendous amount of elements - so certain people might get a chronic overload and develop, say, bad asthma. — Greg LeMond

I have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle it's not going to be satisfying. — Greg LeMond

There are so many people who have died of cycling, and that didn't happen when I was racing. — Greg LeMond

If people really want to clean the sport of cycling up, all you have to do is put your money where your mouth is. — Greg LeMond

It doesn't get any easier; you just get faster. — Greg LeMond

It is cycling as a professional sport that represents the problem. It can transform someone into a liar. — Greg LeMond

The problem with being a Tour de France winner is you always have that feeling of disappointment if you don't win again. That's the curse of the Tour de France. — Greg LeMond

The most important decision I ever made in my career was to live my life in sports as honestly and ethically as possible. Never having compromised my values allows me to look back on my life with no regrets and feel satisfaction in what I was able to accomplish. — Greg LeMond

There are few things that you can't do as long as you are willing to apply yourself. — Greg LeMond

Seattle is very similar to Minneapolis. I like the culture; I like the people. I raced a bike and won a national championship on Lake Washington in 1977, so I've had a connection there for a long time. — Greg LeMond

I'm more optimistic about cycling right now than I've ever been. — Greg LeMond

I used to trapshoot. I was actually a junior national champion. My parents are trapshooters, so I'm more into target stuff. — Greg LeMond

I know too that we Americans like to think of ourselves as cleaner than clean, a healthy nation who would never take anything when a recent poll suggested that 65 per cent of the population would risk dying in 10 years if they would be guaranteed Olympic gold. — Greg LeMond

Even good people are obliged to deceive. — Greg LeMond

More people should apologize, and more people should accept apologies when sincerely made. — Greg LeMond

Racing is a very selfish, self-centred, self-glorifying thing. My wife's life for 14 years was centered around me. It was all about me. It was all for my ego. — Greg LeMond

I'm lucky that mountian biking wasn't around when I was 20, because I wouldn't have won the Tour de France. It's my kind of sport - hard, individualistic, and not a lot of tactics. — Greg LeMond

I know I'll never feel that sensation of racing and winning again and that took a while to get used to. The Tour was a race I never thought I could lose. — Greg LeMond

Sincere apologies are for those that make them, not for those to whom they are made. Sincere apologies are for those that make them, not for those to whom they are made. — Greg LeMond

I know it is possible to win the Tour without taking anything. — Greg LeMond

When you get second place, you say 'I could have won it here, I could have won it there.' When you win, you never say anything; it's finished. — Greg LeMond

I've always thought that travelling every day as a journalist on the Tour's got to be harder than actually racing. — Greg LeMond

I guess I'm a semi-retired person. I work out of my house. I'm a skier in the winter - downhill and cross country. I have a place in Montana for the down-hilling. — Greg LeMond

Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals, acquiring the experience is a matter of time. — Greg LeMond

You don't suffer, kill yourself and take the risks I take just for money. I love bike racing. — Greg LeMond

I wanted to be seen as a good person, and never wanted to let people down, but I found it hard to handle the fame or adulation. I didn't feel worthy of it. I was ashamed by who I thought I was because I felt partly responsible [for the abuse] and I was never able to enjoy the stuff I should have been able to enjoy. My first thought when I won the Tour was: 'My God, I'm going to be famous', and then I thought, 'He's going to call'. I was always waiting for that phone call. I lived in fear that anyone would ever find out. — Greg LeMond

The key is being able to endure psychologically. When you're not riding well, you think, why suffer? Why push yourself for four or five hours? The mountains are the pinnacle of suffering — Greg LeMond