UCI

The Conscience of Cycling: Greg LeMond’s Courage and Why It Still Matters

Today, cycling history comes full circle. Greg LeMond, three-time Tour de France champion, tireless advocate for clean sport, and one of cycling’s truest voices of conscience, is receiving the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor Congress can bestow. And as a soigneur who’s spent years behind the scenes in this sport, I can tell you: no one deserves it more.

This moment isn’t just about palmarès or yellow jerseys. It’s about courage. The kind it takes to speak truth when no one else will.

A Letter That Shook the Sport

In October 2012, with professional cycling imploding under the weight of the Lance Armstrong doping revelations, Greg LeMond did something few in his position would dare. He picked up his pen, wrote an open letter addressed to UCI President Pat McQuaid, and called for accountability at the highest levels of the sport.

He didn’t mince words. In one of the most searing passages, he wrote:

“Pat, if you truly love cycling, as you say you do, please step down.”

And then, in a sentence that would be repeated across cycling forums and newsrooms around the world:

“I want to tell the world of cycling to please join me in telling Pat McQuaid to f##k off and resign.”

For a three-time Tour winner, a national hero, and one of the greatest riders of his generation to speak like that? It wasn’t reckless. It was necessary. LeMond wasn’t chasing headlines, he was protecting a sport that, at its core, belongs to the riders, the soigneurs, the mechanics, the fans. To those of us in the trenches, it meant everything.

Why It Mattered

The Armstrong scandal wasn’t just about one man. It was about a culture, a governing body, and a generation of athletes forced into impossible choices. As a soigneur, you witness those choices in real time. You feel the weight of the unspoken agreements. You see the toll it takes on riders, their bodies, their relationships, their futures.

When LeMond spoke up, it wasn’t just a shot across the bow of cycling’s leadership. It was a hand reaching out to those of us laboring quietly in the shadows, trying to hold on to some sense of integrity in a system that had lost its way.

Pat McQuaid would eventually lose his presidency in 2013. His predecessor, Hein Verbruggen, was implicated by an independent report that documented years of corruption and complicity at the top. And while cycling still isn’t perfect, the omertà that ruled the sport for decades cracked that day.

Greg LeMond gave the sport permission to start telling the truth.

A Sport Worth Fighting For

Cycling at its best is human, flawed, transcendent. It’s heartbreak and glory, often within the same kilometer. Soigneurs have been there when riders crossed the line broken and bleeding, with no cameras left rolling. They have seen the unsung battles, the quiet courage, the nights spent packing up vans and mending bodies for the next brutal morning.

That’s the cycling I love. And it’s the cycling Greg fought for when no one else would.

His words from that open letter still echo for me:

“I love cycling. I want to see it become what it should be, what it can be — a sport without corruption, without deception, and with the integrity to give young athletes a fair chance.”

It’s one of the reasons I founded SAGmonkey. To serve the human side of this sport. To stand with the soigneurs, the riders, the people behind the podiums. And to keep fighting for the cycling we all deserve.

A Well-Earned Honor

Today, as Greg LeMond stands in Washington, D.C. to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, he isn’t being celebrated solely for his victories on the bike. He’s being honored for his relentless integrity, his willingness to be the conscience of cycling when the sport needed it most.

He’s only the second cyclist in history to receive this distinction, following Marshall “Major” Taylor in 2005. That says something about the man, and about how history remembers courage.

The Ride Continues

We’re all stewards of this sport in our own way. Whether you’re racing the Tour, handing up bottles in a feed zone, or driving a team van through the Pyrenees, you leave a mark. Greg LeMond left his. And today, the world acknowledges it.

Here’s to Greg. And here’s to the road ahead.