NEWSWEEK: How’s the Tour so far?
Hinault: We’ve had a superb day on July 14th. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see France’s Richard Virenque win the Tour’s longest stage on France’s National Day. He showed us that he is a racer with real temperament. And with Thomas Voeckler still leading the Tour, it really was a great day for French cycling.
Do you have any contacts with Lance Armstrong?
No, I don’t really talk to him. I’m not going to tell him what he has to do. He has enough people around him for that. He’s a big boy. He knows what he has to do, and what he has to do is win the Tour.
There’s a lot of speculation on whether he will be able to break the record set by you and others. Do you think that he can win the tour a sixth time?
It’s 50-50. He has as many chances as anybody else. There’s not much we can say today; we still haven’t seen anything [in the early stages]. But if nobody gets ready to attack him, he might have an easier time winning.
Armstrong is plagued by rumors of doping. A book just came out alleging that he could be using some yet-to-be-detected drug. He is under extremely intense media scrutiny and just complained about TV crews trying to snoop around his hotel room. Doesn’t that make it hard to compete?
It must be very hard. But it is also up to him at some point to draw the line with the media. He gives enough of himself during the day that he should be able to keep some things private at night.
You’ve had harsh words for people who have questioned Armstrong’s performance on grounds that his cancer drugs may have affected him. Is that something you still believe?
What I said is that if these people had survived the same disease they would better understand where the rage to live, to win and to go back to competition comes from.
Your former teammate Greg LeMond told French daily Le Monde last week that Armstrong “would do anything to keep his secret” about what he’s on, and why whatever it might be has never been detected. What is your feeling on this?
This is something that keeps coming back, and I think that some of it may be linked to LeMond’s jealousy of Armstrong. The fact is that Armstrong has never tested positive. And as long as you don’t have evidence I don’t see how you can accuse him.
LeMond also told Le Monde that, for this reason, “Armstrong’s six victories on the Tour wouldn’t be worth Hinault’s five victories.” What do you think of that?
You cannot compare what’s not comparable. If Eddy Merckx had competed only in the Tour de France, he would have won it 15 times. The problem with cyclists these days is that they do what they’re told to do because the media pressure and the expectations are so huge that the only thing that matters is winning. If you don’t wear yourself out by running other races during the year and you concentrate on competing only two months a year, then you have a big advantage over everybody else. And that’s what Armstrong does.
What makes the Tour such a crucial competition?
It’s a combination of things. You get all the best champions, it’s the summer, people are on holidays and all the media are there. If you have media, you have sponsors, and if you have sponsors, you have money.
You won the Tour five times. Why not six?
Because I decided that it was over. At that point, I wasn’t taking any pleasure in it anymore. I always competed for the sake of the game, never to break the record. And I haven’t gone back on a bicycle since. I am now too busy with the farm anyway. But maybe when I’m retired…
