Huge Tour de France Comebacks That Will Inspire You
2006—Floyd Landis
-Friedemann Vogel//Getty Images
A year after Lance Armstrong’s retirement, it looked like the trend of American winners might continue when Floyd Landis took the yellow jersey on Stage 11. But just two stages later, the longest stage of the Tour on a boiling hot day in southern France, Landis lost the lead in stunning fashion to what the Italians call a fuga bidone: a long, innocent-looking break that contains a high-quality rider.
Landis would regain the lead on Stage 15 on the Alpe d’Huez finish, but the next day, Landis suffered a shocking 10-minute crack on the summit finish to la Toussuire and dropped out of the top 10.
What happened on Stage 17 should’ve been the stuff of legend: Landis set his team on the front on the first big climb, more than 100 kilometers from the finish. With the group whittled down, he launched a solo attack, catching up to and eventually dropping the early breakaway and powering over four summits to the finish in Morzine almost six minutes ahead of the chase. The raid vaulted him back to third overall, just 30 seconds behind Oscar Pereiro, the leader at the time. Landis regained yellow only on the penultimate time trial despite a valiant defense by Pereiro, and rode triumphantly to Paris with one of the slimmest leads in race history—57 seconds.
Then, days later, disaster: a positive test for testosterone. Landis denied and fought the charge, but ultimately lost his title and was banned for two years; Pereiro was declared the winner. The sport essentially shunned Landis even after his ban elapsed, which set in motion the fateful turn of events years later that would result in Armstrong’s own downfall and life ban for doping.
1989—Greg LeMond
-Getty Images//Getty Images
No final Tour stage has ever shocked the racing world like the 1989 Tour, when Greg LeMond clawed 58 seconds out of yellow jersey holder Laurent Fignon in just 24.5 kilometers with a stunning time trial ride.
But the final-day fireworks doesn’t tell you that the ’89 Tour was a see-saw battle for the entire race. Fignon won the Tour in 1983 and ’84 but battled tendon issues in his knee and ankle in the following years. In 1989, he was finally back in top shape, having won May’s Giro d’Italia (LeMond finished 39th).
The two traded yellow back and forth no fewer than five times during the Tour, separated by just a handful of seconds for much of the race. Riding for the underpowered ADR team, LeMond capitalized on time trials, where team strength and tactics aren’t a factor, and seized yellow with a Stage 5 time trial win. He lost it shortly after to Fignon in the Pyrenees. Another strong time trial performance in Stage 15 reclaimed the lead for LeMond, but Fignon deployed his powerful Super-U team to take it back on Stage 17’s Alpe d’Huez finish.