Laurent Fignon

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Laurent Fignon (1993)

Laurent Fignon (born August 12, 1960 in Paris ; † August 31, 2010 there ) was a French cyclist . He won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984 and the Giro d'Italia in 1989 .

Life

Cycling career

Fignon, whose trademark was his glasses and his blonde ponytail, began his professional career in 1982. A year later, at the age of 22, he was able to triumph in the Tour de France for the first time, and in 1984 he repeated his success. He started ten times in the Tour de France between 1983 and 1993, reaching Paris six times. He won a total of nine stages in the world's most important cycling race .

His most famous appearance on the tour was probably his second place in 1989 . He missed the win against Greg LeMond by just eight seconds - the closest gap in tour history. LeMond took over the leader's yellow jersey on stage 5, while Fignon took it from him on stage 10. After the 15th stage, LeMond was in the lead again for two days before Fignon recaptured the jersey on the 17th stage. At no point in the race was the gap more than a minute. Before the last stage, an individual time trial from Versailles to Paris, Fignon was leading by 50 seconds. LeMond finally won the time trial with a 58-second lead and the overall standings with an eight-second lead.

Fignon tested positive for doping substances twice during his career . In 1987 he was tested positive for amphetamines at the Grand Prix de Wallonie and then disqualified. In September 1989 he was suspended due to a positive doping control after a team time trial in Eindhoven .

In addition to his success on the Tour, Fignon was also able to win the Giro d'Italia in 1989 and numerous classic one-day races.

Fignon had a very sober attitude towards his work as a professional cyclist. When asked why he competed in cycling, he replied in an interview: "To earn enough money that I never have to work again." In the same interview, he made no secret of his aversion to cycling for women: "Cycling for women, that's really nothing. "

In 2010 the German translation of Laurent Fignon's autobiography We were young and carefree was published .

After the cycling career

From 2006 to 2010, Fignon reported on the Tour de France as a co-commentator for French television .

On June 11, 2009, it was announced that Fignon was suffering from metastatic pancreatic cancer . He was still commenting on the 2010 Tour de France despite having a tumor that was compressing his vocal folds.

A connection between the occurrence of the cancer and the use of doping drugs during his career was or is considered to be rather unlikely and not demonstrable. Fignon died on August 31, 2010 of complications from his illness in his hometown of Paris. He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.

Most important successes

1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
  • Critérium International
1991
  • a stage Tour des Pouilles
1992
1993
  • Overall ranking and a stage of the Tour of Mexico

Grand Tours placements

Grand Tour 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993
Golden jersey Vuelta a España - 7th - - 7th 3 - - - - - -
Maglia Rosa Giro d'Italia 15th - 2 - - - - 1 DNF DNF 37 -
Yellow jersey Tour de France - 1 1 - DNF 7th DNF 2 DNF 6th 23 DNF
Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

Trivia

With his rival Bernard Hinault, he had a difficult relationship from the first meeting. Fignon first met Hinault as an amateur in 1981 on the Corsica Tour, which is open to professional drivers and amateurs . He asked Hinault for a photo together, which the latter brusquely refused and deeply offended Fignon.

literature

  • Laurent Fignon, Jean-Emmanuel Ducoin: We were young and carefree . Covadonga Verlag, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-936973-52-5

Movies

  • Final stage , 84 min, directed by Fabien Onteniente, Laurent Fignon: Samuel Le Bihan

Web links

Commons : Laurent Fignon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ralf Meutgens (ed.): Doping in cycling. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7688-5245-6 , p. 262 ff.
  2. ↑ a b The world . Berlin July 23, 1984, p. 9 .
  3. ↑ Book review on We were young and carefree , Deutschlandfunk from August 22, 2010
  4. ^ Rheinische Post September 1, 2010: Tour winner Laurent Fignon (50) died
  5. ↑ Today cancer - and earlier doped , tagesspiegel.de of June 29, 2009
  6. ↑ Laurent Fignon: Cancer in the late stage , report on nachrichten.at from June 12, 2009
  7. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Laurent Fignon
  8. ↑ Final stage ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Fignon, Laurent
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 2010
Place of death Paris