Laurent Fignon, 1960–2010

Laurent Fignon won two Tours de France in dominating fashion, but the Frenchman is best remembered for losing the closest Tour in history. In 1989, Fignon and American Greg LeMond were locked in a tense duel throughout the three-week race, swapping the lead several times. Going into the last day, Fignon led by a seemingly insurmountable 50 seconds. But LeMond, furiously pedaling a newfangled, aerodynamic bicycle, won the event’s final stage—an individual race against the clock—by 58 seconds, giving him overall victory by a mere eight seconds. Fignon collapsed in tears upon learning of his defeat and looked so disconsolate during the awards ceremony that even LeMond felt sorry for him.

Born in 1960 in Paris, Fignon played soccer as a youth before being bitten by the cycling bug as a teenager. He dominated the amateur field, “despite the fact that he had started the sport late and rode his father’s ancient bike,” said The Washington Post. Fignon also appeared to be “the last Frenchman who seemed capable of living up to national expectations in the Tour,” said the London Guardian. He stood out from the crowd not only by virtue of his physical gifts but because of his distinctive wire-framed glasses and long blond hair. One of the few European professional cyclists to read books and possess at least some college education—he left school before collecting his veterinary degree—he was known to his fellow cyclists as “the Professor,” though they also called the famously grouchy champion “the Ogre.”

After he won his first Tour at age 22, he seemed poised to rule professional cycling for the next decade. But injuries plagued him, and his 1989 loss “effectively ended his career, though he did not retire until 1993,” said The New York Times. Diagnosed with cancer of the digestive tract in 2009, he insisted, despite his weakened condition, on fulfilling his assignment as an analyst for French TV during this year’s Tour. Poised over the microphone, “he sounded weakened by his illness—his voice gravelly, sometimes a whisper—but characteristically grumpy and perceptive.”