Hinault Still Jealous of Armstrong
7/10/2009 3:43 AM
It seems Bernie the Badger is still jealouse of Lance. We all know the count Lance 7 - Bernie - 5. One would think he'd let it go. Earlier this year Hinault commented on Armstong's possible return to the TdF saying, he hoped Armstrong would stay away from the Tour, and that Contador would give him
"a beating" if he did show up, to which Armstrong retorted:
"What a ***. Five Tour de France wins doesn't buy you any common sense."
Yesterday Hinault further expressed his jealousy saying,
"If I were Contador, I would attack Armstrong tomorrow in the climb to Arcalis to set the record straight and show him who's the boss."To me, Contador is the natural team leader. He won the last three big Tours he entered and we don't know what Armstrong is really worth. We'll know tomorrow but for the time being, I believe Contador is stronger."
I'm not sure who remembers the tours of 1985-86, but Gregg Lemond, Benard Hinault and Andy Hampsten we're all on the La Vie Claire team. In '85 an injured Hinault promises to work for Lemond in '86 if Gregg helps him win his 5th tour in 85. Lemond agrees. 1986 rolls around and when asked of his promise of the previous year Hinault responds, we must see who is stronger." The team is divided with much infighting, but in the end it was the American Lemond winning by a massive 3 minutes.
One of the funniest stories to come out of this is from another American,
Bob "Bobke" Roll then riding for 7-Eleven. The race organizers used military helicopters to evacuate the riders from a mountain-top finish. Scroll down to "From
One Heli TOur"
...I got to the steps to board and nearly froze. From outside in the bright sun, I couldn't see into the helicopter...
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the 'copter, I saw that none other than Andrew Hampsten was seated directly across from me. "Whoa, Drew baby!" I practically jumped up at seeing a fellow American. "Andy, you slayed today," I exclaimed in glee. "Did you see LeMond crush these frog dweebs?" I asked.
Andy just kind of nodded, all subdued. As my adjusted further, right next to Andy sat Greg LeMond, gloriously clad in yellow. "Whoa!!" I jumped up for real and grabbed Le Mond by the shoulders, shaking him and screaming, "Greg, you beast! You got the yellow jersey man! You're going to massacre these Philistines." I sat down and said, "I was climbin' with Hinault, and all the Frenchies were pissed that you dropped his sorry ***."
Just then, my eyes fully adjusted to the darkness and there sat Bernard Hinault himself. Oops. I could've crawled udner my seat. "Hey Bernie, what's up?" was about all I could mumble. To make matters worse, the owner of the La Vie Claire team and one of France's biggest industrialists, Bernard Tapie, was sitting right next to Hinault. Tapie's script for Hinault to win his sixth Tour de France was about to be rewritten by LeMond.
The door was closed and copter blades started to howl. I looked straight at the drab olive wall and saw stenciled there in big white military letters, "Made in the USA." "All right, Tapie," I screamed, "you see this (pointing to the sign)? Made in the USA. Baby, everything is gonna be fine."
Tapie was not amused, but Greg, Andy, and me all started cracking up. Even Hinault cracked a little smile. We took off in a cloud of dust and the rest, as they say, was cycling history.