Three Weeks, Eight Seconds

Author: Nige Tassell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643131079
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 293

Book Description
“I was convinced deep inside that I could not lose. I could not see how it could happen.” —Laurent Fignon “I didn't think. I just rode.” —Greg LeMondFor a race as long as the mighty Tour (three weeks of testing the limits of human endurance), to have the ultimate victory decided by a margin of just eight seconds almost boggles the mind. But that’s exactly what happened between American legend Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon. And LeMond did it on the final stage, as the two sprinted through down the Champs Elysees. It remains the smallest margin of victory in the Tour's 100+ year history. But as dramatic as that Sunday afternoon was, the race wasn't just about that one time-trial. The leader's yellow jersey had swapped back and forth between LeMond and Fignon in a titanic struggle for supremacy, a battle with more twists and turns than an Alpine mountain pass. At no point during the entire three weeks were the pair separated by more than 53 seconds, a razor thin margin between ultimate triumph or agonizing torment. And all this despite LeMond's body still carrying more than 30 shotgun pellets after a shooting accident. Three Weeks, Eight Seconds brings one of cycling's most astonishing stories to life, examining that extraordinary race in all its multifaceted glory.

The Comeback

Author: Daniel de Visé
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 0802165796
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Book Description
“Greg LeMond was Lance Armstrong before Lance Armstrong . . . the story of a true hero . . . This is a must read if you believe in miracles.”―John Feinstein, New York Times–bestselling author In July 1986, Greg LeMond stunned the sporting world by becoming the first American to win the Tour de France, the world’s pre-eminent bicycle race, defeating French cycling legend Bernard Hinault. Nine months later, LeMond lay in a hospital bed, his life in peril after a hunting accident, his career as a bicycle racer seemingly over. And yet, barely two years after this crisis, LeMond mounted a comeback almost without parallel in professional sports. In summer 1989, he again won the Tour—arguably the world’s most grueling athletic contest—by the almost impossibly narrow margin of 8 seconds over another French legend, Laurent Fignon. It remains the closest Tour de France in history. “[A] blend of chaos, kindness and cruelty typifies the scenes that journalist de Visé brings to life in this sympathetic-verging-on-reverential retelling of LeMond’s trailblazing career (first American to enter the tour, first to win it) . . . As an author in quest of his protagonist’s motivation, [de Visé] subjects it to extreme torque.”—The Washington Post “A great book . . . Well written and thoroughly researched . . . Engrossing and hard to put down. If you’re a Greg LeMond fan, The Comeback is a must read because it’s a detailed accounting of his career and―more importantly―his life and person off the bike. It’s also an important reminder that American cycling did not begin and end with Lance Armstrong.”—PEZ

We Were Young and Carefree

Author: Laurent Fignon
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1407075217
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
'Ah, I remember you: you're the guy who lost the Tour de France by eight seconds!' 'No monsieur, I'm the guy who won the Tour twice. The international bestselling autobiography of the legendary French cyclist Laurent Fignon Two-time winner of the Tour de France in the early eighties, Laurent Fignon became the star for a new generation. In the 1989 tour, he lost out to his American arch-rival, Greg LeMond, by an agonising eight seconds. In this revealing account, the former champion spares nobody, not even himself, and pulls back the curtain on what really went on behind the scenes of this epic sport - the friendships, the rivalries, the betrayals, the parties, the girls and, of course, the performance-enhancing drugs. Fignon's story bestrides a golden age in cycling: a time when the headlines spoke of heroes, not doping, and a time when cyclists were afraid of nothing. ‘Sports book of the year: He's ruthlessly honest, about himself and about cycling, and he provides a gripping insight into an unrelenting hard world’ Independent

Eight Seconds

Author: Jean Ferris
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780142301210
Category : Homosexuality
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Eighteen-year-old John must confront his own sexuality when he goes to rodeo school and finds himself strangely attracted to an older boy who is smart, tough, complicated, gorgeous, and gay.

8 Seconds of Courage

Author: Flo Groberg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501165887
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Describes the author's childhood relocation from France to the U.S., where as a naturalized citizen he joined the military and served multiple tours in Afghanistan before he was wounded while protecting his patrol from a suicide bomber.

Slaying the Badger

Author: Richard Moore
Publisher: VeloPress
ISBN: 9781934030875
Category : SPORTS & RECREATION
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Relive the adrenaline, the agony, the camaraderie, and the betrayals of the 1986 Tour de France. Two teammates, Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault, were supposed to cooperate as teammates, but instead entered into a show-stopping rivalry.

First [and Second] Book of Arithmetic

Author: W. Stanyer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Arithmetic
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description

Cycle of Lies

Author: Juliet Macur
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062277243
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
The definitive account of Lance Armstrong's spectacular rise and fall. In June 2013, when Lance Armstrong fled his palatial home in Texas, downsizing in the face of multimillion-dollar lawsuits, Juliet Macur was there—talking to his girlfriend and children and listening to Armstrong's version of the truth. She was one of the few media members aside from Oprah Winfrey to be granted extended one-on-one access to the most famous pariah in sports. At the center of Cycle of Lies is Armstrong himself, revealed through face-to-face interviews. But this unfolding narrative is given depth and breadth by the firsthand accounts of more than one hundred witnesses, including family members whom Armstrong had long since turned his back on—the adoptive father who gave him the Armstrong name, a grandmother, an aunt. Perhaps most damning of all is the taped testimony of the late J.T. Neal, the most influential of Armstrong's many father figures, recorded in the final years of Neal's life as he lost his battle with cancer just as Armstrong gained fame for surviving the disease. In the end, it was Armstrong's former friends, those who had once occupied the precious space of his inner circle, who betrayed him. They were the ones who dealt Armstrong his fatal blow by breaking the code of silence that shielded the public from the grim truth about the sport of cycling—and the grim truth about its golden boy, Armstrong. Threading together the vivid and disparate voices of those with intimate knowledge of the private and public Armstrong, Macur weaves a comprehensive and unforgettably rich tapestry of one man's astonishing rise to global fame and fortune and his devastating fall from grace.

Eight Seconds of MenB

Author: Peter A Smith
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
ISBN: 1839754249
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 91

Book Description
A detailed memoir of a highly traumatic time where a fight for life was taken on by an observant and caring family, a professional hospital team and the patient himself. This story starts with a dramatic awakening in a hospital bed with, initially no clear idea of the reason for being there and no concept of how long those around have already been engaged with the fight already to save his life. The book describes the horror and confusion of hallucinations and the intrusions, pain and discomfort of treatments and procedures which are required to be undertaken through a lengthy and uncertain hospital stay. We follow the patient beyond the acute stage with his continued efforts to regain an as near to normal a life as possible. The writing is presented from the first-hand perspective of the patient prior to their hospital discharge, through Outpatient visits post-discharge and on into the longer phase of gradual recovery and readjustment and in being back in their village community. The extracts from the medical notes and journals written at the time give true to life insights into those times. The book shows great respect, admiration and gratitude to the those who helped the author through their illness and recovery, while seeming to underplay the strength and fortitude the author must have had to come through their life-changing illness with bravery and fortitude.

Scottish Rugby 101

Author: Peter Burns
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
ISBN: 1788851099
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
Scottish Rugby 101 is a compendium of fascinating facts, quotes, stats, stories, personalities and trivia – a perfect stocking-filler for all fans of Scottish rugby. From the very first Test match in 1871 all the way through to the present day, Scottish rugby's rich history is distilled into 101 facts, stats and stories. This fun-packed volume is an instructive, if sometimes irreverent – but always affectionate – guide to some of the ground-breaking firsts, controversies, innovations, achievements and disasters that have taken place in the game north of the Border – an entertaining crib-sheet to Scottish rugby for experts and novices alike.