Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

7-26-89 Wednesday. The average speed of this year’s Tour de France winner, Greg LeMond, was 22.85 miles per hour. It was 21.52 miles per hour in 1987, when Stephen Roche of Ireland won the tour, and 23.75 miles per hour last year, when Pedro Delgado of Spain won. Apparently, the tour has been shortened for good. This year and last, it covered just over 2000 miles and lasted roughly three weeks. Two years ago, it covered 2485 miles and lasted twenty-five days. The average stage length has gone from 99.4 miles (in 1987) to 95.5 miles (in 1988) to 100.1 miles (this year). As for my predictions, I didn’t do too badly. I predicted that Pedro Delgado would repeat last year’s victory; he finished third, three minutes and thirty-four seconds behind LeMond. Had he not been over two minutes late for the prologue, he would have been in the thick of things throughout the tour. My darkhorse candidate was Gert-Jan Theunisse of the Netherlands; he finished fourth, seven and a half minutes behind LeMond. I have to confess, however, to thinking that LeMond was washed up. In fact, he commented on this following the final stage. “I always knew I could come back”, he said. “There was a time when only my family believed in me. I was shocked at how many people gave up on me when I was down.” Mea culpa. Either this shows how little I know about bike racing or it demonstrates just what LeMond accomplished this summer. I prefer to think that it’s the latter.