Neilson Powless: Almost.
He nearly led the Tour de France and got into the winning move at the world championships. His stated goal is to win a monument. Can he do it, or is he doomed to a career of near misses?
July 18, 1991: Greg LeMond was coming out of a rest day in yellow and halfway to winning his fourth Tour de France title. On the first proper mountain stage of the Tour, two Frenchmen—Luc Leblanc and Charly Mottet—put roughly seven minutes into the main group of GC contenders, including LeMond. Mottet won the stage; Leblanc inherited the race lead.
LeMond ended up finishing seventh on GC, 13 minutes behind Miguel Indurain, who won the first of his record five straight Tour de France titles. Around that time, EPO—the anemia drug that increases oxygen supply by turning athletes’ blood into oatmeal—was hitting the pro peloton in force. LeMond, being militantly anti-doping, abstained, and was out of the sport within five years.
That’s the last time an American is officially credited with leading the Tour de France. Four others since—Dave Zabriskie, George Hincapie, Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong—have won the yellow jersey on the road, but all four had their results annulled later on as part of doping sanctions. In the record book, LeMond stands alone.
In 2022, Neilson Powless came within a couple hundred meters of joining him.