Phil Liggett, the Voice of Cycling, has commentated on the world’s top races for the better part of five decades. We spoke to him while in lockdown in South Africa to find out which stories stand out. We’re bringing these to you in a series of articles titled Memories of the Peloton with Phil Liggett.
Andy Hampsten conquered the Gavia in testing weather conditions to become the first American to win the Giro d’Italia in 1988. Photo: Photo credits
You know, people often ask me who is the best rider never to have won the Tour de France, but the truth is that most of the best riders in the world never won the Tour.
You need a little bit more than just pure talent. You always need that little edge of luck when you ride against all the elements and all the other teams.
In the early days and through the 1980s they were 10-man teams. And then they knocked it down to nine and now it is down to eight in a bid to make it more difficult for any one team to control the race.
Especially these days, where the Tour seems to be more of a team race where you have your leader and build a strong back-up team around him.
Up to the eighties, the tactics allowed the strong men to come to the fore. Yes, they needed their teams, but, for example, when Greg le Mond won his comeback Tour de France for the Belgian ADR team, he only had three teammates left. Of them only one, I think it was Johan Lammerts, was able to support him towards the end.
There are classy bike riders who can’t look back at their careers and say I’ve won the Tour de France. And one of those who sticks in my mind is Andy Hampsten, the American.
This was a good-looking boy who was a fantastic climber. When Greg LeMond won his first Tour in 1986, I remember interviewing him on the Champs-Élysées at midnight because it was being transmitted live to CBS in New York, so there was a big time delay of some six hours, backwards, to America.
And Greg sat there with Andy, who had just finished fourth in his first attempt at the Tour and, along with it, won the white jersey of best newcomer. I remember Greg pointing at Andy and saying, “Hey, this guy alongside me, he’ll win the Tour de France one day as well”.
Here were two Americans, top-four finish, and they had never been remotely close in the past. This was the arrival of American cycling in stage racing. They have always achieved in World Championships, but now we were talking stage racing.
Andy didn’t get to win the Tour de France. He finished fourth once more in 1992. His only stage win, of course, was a classic one – he won on the climb of Alpe d’Huez.
But then between all of this he did go on to win – in atrocious conditions – the Giro d’Italia. He won that in 1988 and at the time he was riding for the American-sponsored 7-Eleven team. It was a big triumph for American cycling because they had just won a Grand Tour.
I remember riding with him in Italy once. Because of that great victory that he had in the Giro, he was an absolute hero in Italy and still is to this day.
He can walk into any butcher shop and take a piece of proscetto off the wall and they’ll just say, “Andy, it’s for you, it’s a present”, and he’ll get it for nothing.
The Italians loved him I think probably more than the Americans really had the chance of loving him, because they didn’t really understand cycling quite as well as they do perhaps today.
But, for me, I think Andy is my boy. Yes, he tried to win the Tour. Yes, he finished fourth twice and he had two more top-10 positions, if memory serves me right, but never got on the podium.
But he will always have that lovely claim to fame, “I won on Alpe d’Huez”. And there aren’t many who can say that.
He was a clean-shaven, good-looking guy and I am certain, as one could be in those days, that he never resorted to any form of stimulation. He didn’t want to know about it.
Boy, was he tired when he won at Alpe d’Huez. I remember him sitting on the grass, covered in sweat – absolutely knackered.
In the days of EPO, they used to bounce off to the podium, shake hands and off they went. Andy couldn’t do that. Andy was a pure one.
That is maybe why his results have been seen as a little bit less than he appeared capable of. Because, the eighties into the nineties, we now all know what was going on – but we didn’t then.
