‘He wouldn’t have waited!’ – Sean Kelly remembers Greg LeMond v Bernard Hinault battle at 1986 Tour de France

Irish cycling royalty Sean Kelly has reflected on the 1986 Alpe d’Huez thriller at the Tour de France, which saw team-mates Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault cross the line hand in hand after a controversial battle in the mountains.

The narrative began a year earlier when LeMond sacrificed his own ambitions to propel Hinault to a record-equalling fifth Tour title, with the grateful Frenchman pledging to help the American win the following edition.

Flash forward to 1986 and Stage 18: Lemond in yellow, over two minutes clear of Switzerland’s Urs Zimmermann in second, with fellow La Vie Claire star Hinault third in GC.

What followed entered cycling folklore. Hinault charged clear after attacking uphill in an astonishing gear, leaving LeMond dutifully sitting behind Zimmerman and forcing the Swiss to close the gap.

When Zimmerman began to tire, LeMond set off in pursuit of Hinault and soon re-joined his colleague. The pair had built a huge lead by the time they hit the Alpe d’Huez, but Hinault continued to set a decent pace.

The pair eventually crossed the line together, with Hinault awarded the stage win after a small late burst of acceleration – but debate has raged since about why the Frenchman was pushing in the first place.

“I actually didn’t watch every day, because I was so p***ed off for not taking part [through injury after crashing in the Tour de Suisse]. It’s hard to really focus when you just want to be there,” said Eurosport expert Kelly.

“But you do watch out for the big days so I was watching that day – Stage 18, and I remember seeing Hinault and Lemond climbing Alpe d’Huez and then they come in over the line hand in hand, but Hinault just pushed a little bit ahead to make sure he got the stage.

“It’s a stage where there’s big history. And, of course, we know Hinault, had promised [to support LeMond] but he didn’t really hold his promises. And Greg has said in the past Hinault was secretly trying to break him. So not just as a stage itself and the profile with the famous mountains, but then the duel between them and in the same team.

“And then you had Bernard Tapie [La Vie Claire general manager at the time] saying to Greg he can win the Tour. But he would then say the same to Hinault. It wasn’t clear, you could read between the lines he was backing both horses, he didn’t want to say to one of them they can win the Tour and not say the same thing to the other.

“I don’t think it was clear. I suppose he wants to be the winner, but he didn’t want to take sides because, you know, he had two big champions and he didn’t want to really, I suppose, p*** anybody off.

“It made for great racing. And I think he had he the two strongest riders in the Tour and something pretty bad and surprising had to happen for neither to win the Tour, and Tapie knew that. There’s talk about it today after so many years, so that tells us it’s a great story.

“I don’t think Hinault felt bad at all, you could see he was trying to push the pace and Greg stayed on the wheel as well a lot of the time on Alpe d’Huez.

“So Hinault was still testing him and he tried to break him earlier on when he first attacked. But LeMond kept his cool and gave the effort to catch Hinault, he did it and then yeah, it was job done.

“But Hinault still didn’t give up. He still tried on Alpe (d’Huez) and thought he might put Greg in difficulty and if he started to struggle, you know, three bike lengths 10 bike lengths, he wouldn’t have waited for him, that’s a guarantee.”

LeMond ticked off the final few stages to become the first non-European to win the Tour, while it was Hinault’s last appearance at the Tour.

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