8 seconds, the most exciting Tour ever. Part I.

23 years ago, 8 seconds were the difference between the tragedy and the glory in the Tour de France, a brave rider lost against a lucky and conservative one, but above all the most exciting edition of Tour history happened...........

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In the first big Tour of the season, the former winner of the Tour won the Vuelta in a polemic tour ( as it happened in all his grand tours). Delgado won it by a few margin with the Colombian Parra who nearly beat him in the last mountain stage with Navacerrada and other important climbs. Delgado was helped by some cyclists, especially the Russian Ivanov. The Spaniard was caught the following morning giving him a card, in words of Delgado with his address .........

Foto wikipedia

In spite of those polemic facts, the Spanish climber was still the main favourite to win the Tour.....

On the other hand, the 1989 season was resurrection of Laurent Fignon, who won the Milan San Remo classic for the second year in a row, and won the Giro, being the thir French rider to win it ( after Anquetil who did it twice and Hinault who won the 1980,82 and 85 editions)

Foto SIROTTI

However, that time happened the opposite of the 1984 edition when the Stelvio was not climbed and Moser took advantage. This time the stage with the Gavia climb was cancelled and Fignon took profite of that, while the Italian Giupponi, couldn´t continue his overall improvement.

The French kept the pink jersey in the last time trial, even though a non important event ( in appeareance) happened. Greg Lemond was second in the time trial , just after Piasechi. A nervous Guimard told Fignon that night that Lemond was going to be a contender for the Tour..........it was true.........

The Tour was going to start the 1st of July in Luxemburg with a 7,8 km prologue, and was going to finish in Paris with a 24,5 km individual time trial from Versalles to Paris.

It was curious that those stages were the key stages of the edition, in a Tour with very short mountain stages.

The queen stages of the 1989 Tour edition were Cauterets - Superbagneres in the Pyrenees

Perfil icilismo.it

...in a shorter stage , but with the same climbs that the famous stage of 1986 that Greg Lemond won in the day that Hinaul tried to copy Merckx exploit in Mourenx 1969.

........and Briancon - Alpe D´Huez of 165 kilometers in the Alps

Foto iciclismo.it

The individual time trials of Rennes and Orcieres Merlette, and the mountain stages of Cauterets ( with the  Aubisque in the route ) and the Alpine one of Briancon, passing the legendary Izoard were other decisive stages.