The Famous Eight Seconds

“Ah, I remember you; you’re the guy who lost le Tour de France by eight seconds!”

“Non-monsieur, I am the guy who won it twice.”

Until his untimely death, and beyond, Laurent Fignon was, and is, remembered for one race. One year. One Time Trail. Eight seconds.

The 2020 Tour de France you might think had the greatest time trialling upset of all time. A tale of Pogacar’s flying start, his relaxed bike lean against his team car, the mental wherewithal to deliver a sprinters bike throw for the line. Then removing his helmet to show a boy still with spots. A boy, unaware of what he had just achieved. On the other hand, you have Roglic. His ungainly large, ballooning rear end sitting uncomfortably atop his TT rig, his instance of unnaturally getting out of the saddle and, lest we forget, the skew-wiff helmet placed on top of a hollowed-out skull. Pogacar has achieved feat believed unachievable. The unsurmountable time difference has been surmounted. Impossible only one hour before. Surely this cannot have been, and will never be, surpassed. Right?

The 1989 Tour de France had two major favourites, Delgado, the previous year’s winner, and the inconsistent Frenchman, Fignon. Both had just tasted the sweet joys of Grand tour success, with victories in that years Vuelta and Giro respectively. The 1986 American Tour winner, Lemond, also returned for the first time in 3 years. Still recovering life-threatening gunshot wound accidentally inflicted by his Brother-in-Law (I bet Christmas was fun) two years before. He was an unknown force, happy to just be riding and unsure of whether he could even last the 3 weeks.

If the 2020 tour’s penultimate day was unpredictable, the 1989 race was downright ludicrous. It all started with a prologue, a now seemingly unfashionable concept, at just 7.8 kilometres it would take the riders around 10 minutes. An opportunity for the tour organisation to show off all the riders, the teams, the fancy new bikes yet not have a meaningful effect on the overall classification in Paris. A couple of seconds here or there maybe, but nothing to rule anyone out prematurely.

Indeed, not even a second separated Lemond and Fignon on the line. Irelands Sean Kelly also looked to be flying out of the start blocks, but something was wrong. Delgado, the rider after Kelly, wasn’t in the start hut. The final countdown beeps started, then finished and there was still no sign of him. As the rules stated, the stopwatch started at his pre-described start time, whether he was there or not. A nervous energy buzzed around in the Luxemburg capital. A media frenzy brewing as seconds turned to minutes. “Is he going to show?” “Why is he not here?” Finally, a yellow-clad figure frantically pushed his way through the throng of journalists, jumped off his bike and sprinted through the starting hut. Pedro Delgado’s Tour de France has started, 2 minutes 40 seconds after it should have. Pretty much ruling himself out of contention before the tour had even begun.

In any other year that would have been enough time trialling drama for a decade, let alone a Tour de France. Not 1989.

On the eve of the final day in Paris, Yellow was firmly on Fignon shoulders. It had been a battle royal between the recovering Lemond and the Parisian traditionalist. Le Professeur, as Fignon was affectionally known due to his oval spectacles and university education, was the stronger climber and the man with the better team. His only problem: the time trials.

After stage 2b, the team time trial, Fignon led Lemond by 51 seconds. A lead which disappeared just 4 days later when the American won the Individual time trial into Rennes. Snatching himself yellow by just 5 seconds. This time trial is where Lemond first played his ace card, Tribars. A new concept to the road world being first seen that year at the Tour de Trump in America.

On Stage 10, however, Fignon replied with a mammoth effort to the Pyrenean ski resort of Superbagnères taking 12 seconds back from Lemond and putting himself back into the race lead. Lemond returned the volley 5 days later, again in a time trial, but this time a mountainous one, beating Fignon convincingly and giving himself a 40-second buffer going into the last few days in the alps. The next day, he tried to hammer home his advantage with a tough alpine stage going over the Col d’Izoard but only managed to pinch another 13 seconds.

A victory margin that was again quashed the following day up L’Alpe d’Huez when Fignon came third, but more importantly put a minute and 19 into Lemond. Regaining the race lead now by just 26 seconds. He doubled up his advantage on the next day (Stage 18) crossing the line first and taking another 24 seconds out of the American.

Lemond didn’t take this laying down, proving the point that this tour wasn’t done just yet. Stage 19 into Aix-les-Bains saw the two men finish one and two on the line with the American taking the race spoils, but no time over the Professor.

This is how that fateful time trial had poised itself. Two men with horns locked together, both taking and dishing out blow after blow. There was one stage left, all bets were off.

The two men on the start ramp seemed to be racing in different eras. Fignon was the elder man by a year, but their contrasting appearance seemed to mark a changing of the guard. His bull horn bars with hindsight look decidedly bare without their tribar extensions protruding out front. That ponytail probably wasn’t aero either. But he did look cool, which might have been the point. Double disc wheels, white Sidi socks, really black shorts, in fact, an almost logo-less set up with the vivid yellow jersey and, of cause, topped with those trademark oval, wire-rimmed spectacles. He even dispensed with the aerodynamic helmet he had worn in the prologue.

Lemond on the other hand was all miss-matched colour. A blur of yellows, purples, blacks, reds, whites and rainbow banded gloves grasping those new infamous triathlon protrusions. But all that mattered is the garish Lemond blur was a whopping 2% faster than the stylish Fignon blur. That 2% got him an advantage of 58 seconds on the 25km course. A final lead of 8 seconds over three weeks.

Three weeks, 8 seconds.

Pure elation and unrelatable pain.

For every winner, there is a looser. Every time victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat, defeat is also snatched from the jaws of victory. Fignon was never the same after 89, and never got to avenge himself at the tour, he retired just four years later.

2020 or 1989? Both final time trials were beautiful master stokes in cycling, never to be forgotten. Both filled with joy and pain. Whichever you prefer, let’s just all hope the 2020 Tour doesn’t to Roglic what the 1989 Tour did to Fignon.