About ‘Slaying the Badger’ Film Summary
Before Lance Armstrong, there was Greg LeMond, who is now the first and only American to win the Tour de France. In this engrossing documentary, LeMond looks back at the pivotal 1986 Tour, and his increasingly vicious rivalry with friend, teammate and mentor Bernard Hinault. The reigning Tour champion and brutal competitor known as “The Badger,” Hinault “promised” to help LeMond to his first victory, in return for LeMond supporting him in the previous year. But in a sport that purports to reward teamwork, it’s really every man for himself.
Thanks for posting–it was an interesting show. Great to see all that old cycling footage again and fascinating to get all the involved parties’ opinion on the Hinault/Lemond war.
Definitely was interesting. I didn’t follow the sport back then so it’s interesting to see the dynamics of the relationship. Pretty cutthroat sport. More so than the average person would think. Nice to see ESPN cover it.
nice job, liked to hear from all sides. the manager, Koechli, didn’t come off too well trying to explain some of the situations that came up in 85 & 86. He had some strange tactics which wouldn’t go over too well today. Like when Hinault attacked at the end of the 86 tour and LeMond was behind with Zimmermann? and Koechil said if you want to win then attack Zimmermann and go get Hinault. Seems kind of strange to attack and maybe drag Zimmermann up to Hinault? Also, at this time Koechil didn’t go up to Hinault at this time and say what are you doing, attacking your teammate and the race leader? Koechil didn’t have good answers for me.
As an aside, I thought Kathy LeMond looked better today than 28 years ago.
I watched this last night and I really enjoyed it.
Koechli seemed uncomfortable when confronted with may of the questions, especially when there was film to contridict what he was saying. It had to be tough for LeMond to know that not only was Hinault not on his side, but neither was his director Koechli or Bernard Tapei much of the time. You wouldn’t expect Koechli to take sides would you? After all - he was Swiss!!!
I became a cyclist in the late 90’s and unfortunately missed the LeMond era. I always rooted for Marco Pantani and Jan Ullrich - I was always sort of an anti Lance kind of guy for some reason. I remember having three posters in college - one of LeMond, one of Ullrich, and one of Pantani - but only room for two of them on the wall. Unfortunately the LeMond poster didn’t make the cut. Today it would probably be the only one that would.
Maybe now I’ll have to go find myself a nice retro La Vie Claire jersey to make myself feel better about not appreciating his talent all of these years.
I too was able to enjoy this documentary. I got into cycling at a very young age because of Lemond! I remember to this day reading about Greg when he was shot and littered with pellets and almost lost his life. If my memory serves correct, I started riding my uncles Huffy at the age of 9 in the late 80’s and his impact in American cycling is one like no other.
To get a glimpse of the cycling culture from the Badger’s translated side is very much enlightening.
Go watch this if you have a love for the sport of rivalry, tactics and an American threading in uncharted territory.
Anyone know if there will be a reply or if I can stream this from somewhere? I tried going to WatchEspn and ESPN3 but couldn’t find anything. Nor could I see it on the schedule of upcoming programs
Film Summary