The Story Of The Tour De France, Volume 2: 1976-2018: How A Newspaper Promotion Became The Greatest Sporting Event In The World

Volume 1 of "The Story of The Tour de France" concluded with Bernard Thevenet's winning the 1975 edition, marking the end of Eddy Merckx's dominance of the Tour. Volume 2 opens with the Bernard Hinault's masterful racing in a Tour era deeply troubled by doping and the Tour's declining financial position.Unable to fulfill his destiny as a likely 5-time winner because of a hunting accident, Greg LeMond still won the Tour three times. LeMond's Era was followed by the remarkable Spaniard Miguel Indurain, the first man to win the tour five times in a rowThe late 1990s were a time of extreme crises for the Tour as the culture of doping within the professional cycling community erupted into the scandal of 1998. "The Story of the Tour de France" deals with this episode at length.The Lance Armstrong era followed and until he was stripped of his victories for doping, Armstrong had done what no other rider had done before, win the Tour seven times. The Tour dealt with all these problems and seemed to emerge stronger than ever, with a new cohort of riders racing at slower speeds than the riders of just a few years before. Though the racing was cleaner and better, questions still remain.The book concludes with the story of the 2018 Tour, followed by a quest for the greatest-ever Tour de France rider and an epilogue explaining the reason for the Tour extraordinary success.

• | Author: Bill McGann, Carol McGann
• | Publisher: Mcgann Publishing Llc
• | Publication Date: Jun 17, 2019
• | Number of Pages: 414 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback/Sports & Recreation
• | ISBN-10: 0985963697
• | ISBN-13: 9780985963699