Three Weeks, Eight Seconds

March 15, 2019
In 1989, the cycling world was stunned when American Greg LeMond pulled off one of the greatest sporting comebacks in history by winning the grueling three-week Tour de France by a razor-thin margin of eight seconds. In the last stage, he crushed an unsuspecting French competitor and two-time Tour winner, Laurent Fignon, who led by 50 seconds at the outset. Tassell retells the story of this epic race in the manner of a play: scene by scene (each stage of the race) in three acts (each week) and opening with a prelude, the 1987 shooting of LeMond by his brother-in-law in a hunting accident. LeMond and Fignon (who died in 2010) have each shared their version of the race in other books, and, while Tassell doesn't offer any new revelations here, he does include current thoughts from cyclists who participated in the race as well as new reflections from LeMond himself and his wife, Kathy. A well-written, engaging account of a historic race won by the greatest American cyclist of all time.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)