Mr. Positive?

This year’s Tour de France is being billed as the Tour of change.  New teams with new attitudes and new sponsors have re-invigorated the energy around the race.  Perhaps the most amazing change that I have noticed during the Tour is Greg Lemond.  It seems that he is on a mission to re-build his image with the American public.  Greg’s popularity has struggled over the years as he has almost trademarked a pessimistic view of professional cycling even as the popularity of the sport has grown.  His pessimism has sometimes been described as jealousy towards new American winners of the Tour.  His behavior in recent years has been as strange as his public attitude towards the sport that made his a household name.  Last year, his appearance at the Floyd Landis trial made everyone cringe because of his very strange behavior and almost a strange pre-occupation with skewering Floyd.  Couple that appearance with his inability to remain civil with Trek Bicycles, who was the partner that paid Greg for the license to use his brand name.  All of this has made Lemond’s popularity dwindle in recent years.  I recently saw a poll on a cycling website that listed Lemond as the third most popular American rider of all time…behind such likeable characters as #1 Floyd Landis and #2 Lance Armstrong.

Well, maybe Lemond finally listened to his PR manager, because he is blitzing the Tour de France coverage with positive attitude.  He appeared on the Versus coverage in a strange disjointed interview, but he didn’t mention one negative thing.  He must have used the word “positive” at least ten times in the one minute interview.  He has popped up on the ITV Podcast coverage sounding ver chipper and has been quoted in several Tour de France stories both yesterday and today.  Perhaps Mr. Lemond has finally figured out that it isn’t hard to remain Americas favorite if you just put forth a smile and talk nicely about the sport we love.  It shouldn’t be too difficult to beat out Floyd and Lance for most popular American rider of all time, and I certainly welcome Lemond’s new persona.  I hope it is more than just a short act to get a new partner to license his bicycle brand….I hope he can make it stick.

7 July 2008 | 2008 Tour de France | Comments