There are two familiar theories about Bernard Hinault’s 1986 Tour de France. The first is Greg LeMond’s theory; that Hinault was trying to win the Tour, despite the agreement that he would support LeMond after the American had helped him in 1985. According to this view, Hinault’s attacks were not theatre, not strategy, not high-minded attempts to soften the opposition. They were betrayal dressed as help.
The second is Hinault’s official explanation; that everything he did was for LeMond. He attacked to make their rivals chase, make the race hard to destroy their opponents. He honoured his word, supported his team-mate, then smiled in Paris because the plan worked, but it worked in a way that only he knew.
That’s the third theory, and maybe it’s the one that fits Bernard Hinault the best… He was not trying to win the 1986 Tour de France but trying to prove he could have won it if he’d wanted.
That distinction matters, because it goes to the heart of Hinault’s character. He was not just a champion who liked winning. He was a champion who needed victory to have witnesses. He needed opponents to feel his presence, the sport to know he was in the room. And in 1986, as Greg LeMond moved towards becoming the first American to win the Tour de France, Hinault could not simply be the outgoing champion handing over the kingdom to a team-mate, and in many ways his apprentice, with a handshake and a pat on the back.
That was not him…
Hinault built his career on domination, intimidation and revenge. He did not race like sport was a shared enterprise, he raced like it was conflict, and conflict had to be settled. That’s why his attacks in 1986 were so difficult to read. They were not logical in a narrow tactical sense. They didn’t always help LeMond, and they didn’t help Hinault win, but they helped his legend… Maybe that was the point.
The early clue came on the road to Superbagnères, on the stage we covered last Friday. Hinault had already put LeMond into difficulty the day before, breaking away with Pedro Delgado and taking 4 minutes 36 seconds from his team-mate. LeMond was down after that, wondering if he was destined to finish second in the Tour again, which wasn’t their team, La Vie Claire’s plan.
Hinault in yellow and LeMond anxious, that shouldn’t be happening, maybe the real plan would be enacted on stage 2 in the Pyrenees, the road to Superbagnères. In the end it did prove decisive, but was Bernard Hinault supposed to attack on the first climb? Was that the plan?
He gained time over the Tourmalet, then stretched his lead towards 3 minutes by the Peyresourde. LeMond was in trouble again, not physically but psychologically. If Hinault held that lead he would have been 8 minutes clear overall by the end of the day, and that would mean the Tour was over for LeMond.
What was Hinault doing? Everyone asked, then came one of those roadside moments that can illuminate a race.
As Hinault’s advantage reached 3 minutes, a fan stepped into the road and held up 3 fingers directly in his sight. Hinault saw him and responded by baring his teeth and raising his fist in triumphant confirmation, not like a man calmly executing a team plan, like a fighter answering a roar from the crowd. It looked like defiance; it looked like a message.
“Yes. I can still do this,” is that what Hinault was saying? He could have won that Tour if he wanted?
Of course, a gesture doesn’t prove intent, but it supports our third theory. In that moment Hinault did not look like a man sacrificing himself for LeMond. But neither did he look like a man making a measured attempt to win the Tour outright. He looked like he was demonstrating force. He’d ripped up the race, laid waste to it, caused panic, and everyone, including Greg LeMond, felt the fear again.
Hinault was speaking his language, doing what he did. He never practised diplomacy or reassurance; all he knew, all he traded in was force.
The attack didn’t last. It couldn’t, it was badly timed, too soon and tactically inept. The gap collapsed. Hinault sat up and waited, and LeMond rode away to win the stage.
Having proved his point, you might have expected Hinault to desist, to stand aside and LeMond to cruise into yellow, but Hinault didn’t. Even before the Alps he was up to his old tricks again.
On stage 16 from Nîmes to Gap he joined forces with Urs Zimmermann, who was third overall, and the talented Belgian Claude Criquiélion, and attacked with 110 kilometres to go. LeMond was snookered again, he couldn’t chase a team-mate, but he had 4th overall Robert Millar with him, and several of Millar’s Panasonic team-mates. They brought Hinault and Zimmermann to heel after 90 minutes of solid chasing.
At the finish LeMond was at a loss to explain what Hinault had done. Hinault stuck to his story, his attacks were all to force LeMond’s rivals to chase. But Zimmermann was one of those rivals, so that explanation did not wash. LeMond certainly didn’t believe it and spent a sleepless night in Gap before the first Alpine stage.
He’d come to a decision though, he would watch Hinault and look for signs of weakness. Hinault had used a lot in the race, and it must have been having an effect by now. LeMond knew Hinault had a problem with his left calf muscles, and shortly before the race hit the Col d’Izoard, he was hanging on to the race doctor’s car getting treated. On the final bends of the giant climb, Hinault was dropped by the leaders.
That was all Greg LeMond needed.
With Hinault falling back, the American attacked on the descent. Panic spread behind him. Urs Zimmermann managed to stay with LeMond, just, but LeMond used all his back-country skiing technique to cut the right lines as he plummeted towards Briançon.
LeMond and Zimmermann hit the final climb together, and what a final climb it was. At 2,413 metres, the stage finish on top of the Col de Granon would be the highest in Tour history at that point. Eduardo Chozas won after a long lone breakaway, but Zimmermann and LeMond finished next, with Hinault 2 minutes 21 seconds behind. He’d lost the yellow jersey to LeMond on the 79th time he wore it. It would be his last.
Zimmermann was second overall now, 2 minutes 24 seconds behind LeMond. Hinault third, at 2 minutes 47. Except Hinault wasn’t finished, not by a long way.
The next day started with a climb up the south side of the Col du Galibier. The riders crossed the summit strung out but basically together, then Hinault went wild down the other side. He attacked repeatedly, and dragged LeMond, Steve Bauer and Pello Ruiz-Cabestany clear.
They gained 3 minutes on the pack before the second climb, the Col de la Croix de Fer. Zimmermann nearly crashed trying to stay close to LeMond on the Galibier descent and had to drop back. Then Bauer and Ruiz-Cabestany were dropped on the Croix de Fer, and Hinault and LeMond were away.
What happened next was one of the most memorable displays in cycling history. Hinault and LeMond went over the Croix de Fer together, then stormed up Alpe d’Huez, gaining time with every pedal stroke. Towards the top they started talking. They had shared something special that day, and their faces were wreathed in smiles. They rode side by side for a while, and just short of the finish Hinault grabbed LeMond’s arm and raised it. They crossed the line like that, together, except Hinault’s wheel was slightly ahead. He won the stage and moved up to second overall. LeMond seemed to have won the Tour in a beautiful moment of unity.
Hinault had poured oil on troubled waters, then set fire to it at the post-stage press conference. “This race will not be over until after the time trial at St-Étienne,” he said, folding his arms and saying no more.
That sentence is the key to everything. If Hinault had wanted to reassure LeMond, he could have done so. If he had wanted to declare the matter settled, he had the perfect opportunity. If he had wanted history to remember him as the loyal champion who created the first American Tour winner, he could have stepped neatly into that role, smiled and look good in it.
Instead, he made everyone look ahead to July 24… The rumour network of the Tour de France did the rest.
People started saying that Hinault had a plan with former team-mates. The idea was they’d attack on the 180-kilometre road stage to St-Étienne, before the time trial. That would give Hinault the opportunity to counterattack, then look like he was defending LeMond while working himself into a paying break.
The truce of Alpe d’Huez lasted long enough for the photographs to dry, and that’s all.
Sure enough, next day Hinault did attack. He joined a short-lived break with Stephen Roche, only for a furious La Vie Claire rider, Steve Bauer to chase and haul the peloton back to them. Then LeMond attacked with team-mate Jean-François Bernard, and Hinault chased after them.
It was absurd and brilliant, and exhausting. It was also pure Bernard Hinault. Even when the race appeared decided, he made sure nobody felt safe. Even when he said his goal was to help LeMond win, he raced in ways that forced LeMond to respond as if he was a threat.
Nerves were frayed, tempers growing thin, then it was July 24, the 58-kilometre individual time trial in St-Étienne.
LeMond desperately wanted to win. He wanted to put Hinault away, finally and completely. He wanted a result that no press conference could twist, no French fan could reinterpret, no team-mate could claim as part of a hidden plan. He wanted to beat Hinault against the clock, in the discipline where Hinault had baked much of his greatness.
But LeMond made a mistake. He admitted later that he was trying too hard. Just before halfway, he went too fast into a corner and crashed. He lost around half a minute, then lost a few more seconds when he had to change bikes because of a damaged brake.
At the finish he was beaten by 25 seconds. The winner was Bernard Hinault.
That result is why July 24 matters so much. Not because it changed the destination of the 1986 Tour. LeMond still had the yellow jersey. Hinault was still second. The American was moving towards Paris, towards history, but St-Étienne gave Hinault what he needed; proof he was still in the game, still capable of winning if he wanted to.
And perhaps that was enough.
The 3 fingers and raised fist on the Peyresourde, the attack with Zimmermann, the descent of the Galibier, the smiles on Alpe d’Huez, the warning at the press conference, the win in St-Étienne; all of it fits the same pattern. Bernard Hinault did not need to win the 1986 Tour to win his argument. He needed to show that he could still create panic, still hurt LeMond, still bend the race around himself, still beat the man who was about to replace him.
For Hinault, that mattered. It allowed him to occupy the strange, powerful ground between defeat and victory. He could lose the Tour but keep the argument alive. He could stand in Paris and congratulate LeMond while knowing that many French fans believed he could have won if he’d chosen to.
That really mattered.
Photos: Cycling Legends Collection.
