Laurent Fignon RIP

24

Comments

  • takethehighroad
    takethehighroad Posts: 6,821
    Before my time but still a legend
  • Moomaloid
    Moomaloid Posts: 2,040
    The 89 Tour was a life changing moment for me and that was very much down to Fignon. A true Champion, always looking to attack and ride from the front. Today's news was devastating. A great man. RIP Laurent.
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,725
    Eurosport paying a tribute, now.
    JC interviews Sean Kelly.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • IanLD
    IanLD Posts: 423
    Took over from my hero Hinault and stood proud for France.

    Stunned at how quickly he is gone after fighting for so long. He has certainly left plenty of memories of courage and dignity.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,463
    RIP, such a shame. 89 was the first Tour I watched in any detail and it probably led to me taking up cycling. Not a man I particularly warmed to but there was no doubting his ability and committment, the sort of character it takes to be a true great. Bit of a shock as I thought I heard during the Tour that he was improving.
  • dave_1
    dave_1 Posts: 9,512
    :.-( very sad. RIP Laurent!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKBacb2V ... ata_player
  • Monty Zoncolan
    Monty Zoncolan Posts: 341
    He seemed to have rallied a bit this summer on French tv but perhaps he'd just accepted the inevitable. Au revoir le professeur.
  • pomtarr
    pomtarr Posts: 318
    Allez Fignon. RIP.
    "Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult"
  • wicked
    wicked Posts: 844
    Terrible news. No way for anyone to die certainly not a champion like Fignon. Thoroughly enjoyed his book recently as well :cry:
    It’s the most beautiful sport in the world but it’s governed by ***ts who have turned it into a crock of ****.
  • josame
    josame Posts: 1,162
    Great rider

    Fignon RIP
    'Do not compare your bike to others, for always there will be greater and lesser bikes'
  • pneumatic
    pneumatic Posts: 1,989
    Shame.

    Like others, heard him on French TV during this year's Tour. Even with his failing voice, he had important things to say about the sport he had graced so elegantly as a rider.

    Fast and Bulbous
    Peregrinations
    Eddingtons: 80 (Metric); 60 (Imperial)
  • zippypablo
    zippypablo Posts: 398
    Sad to hear this news. I'm old enough to remember watching him and he really made the 89 Tour special.
    If suffer we must, let's suffer on the heights. (Victor Hugo).
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    The picture with the Badger is quite heartbreaking

    http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5473/ ... Nation.com)
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • dave_1
    dave_1 Posts: 9,512
    iainf72 wrote:
    The picture with the Badger is quite heartbreaking

    http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5473/ ... Nation.com)

    yes, the pic made me feel :cry: . Have spent all evening reading through all the great race reports and pictures of his era. :cry:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKBacb2V ... ata_player
  • FransJacques
    FransJacques Posts: 2,148
    I'm sad I didn't see that one. It would've been waterworks time. It's a lot more poignant now that I get that he commentated on-air all the way to Paris b/c he obviously knew that it was his last time likely. He really did sound like sheit and he'd often get 3/4 way through a sentence, pause, and continue. But being a fighter on a bike made him tougher than one could imagine.

    I have a 1983 elf-Renault hat I bought in Paris on my first trip to the continent because of him. His bike was also a beautiful blue colour and the Benotto tape was very lustful for a young aspiring fred like me.

    Someone on this or the cyclingnews forum said he made specs look cool and I agree - I wore them from a young age very self-consciously. Everything about cycling in the mid-80s made one self conscious, it wasn't a very fashionalbe sport then, but he looked better than most and rode the same way - had a great Bugno-like smooth style. I think he may have had long legs for his height.
    When a cyclist has a disagreement with a car; it's not who's right, it's who's left.
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Lemond

    He was one of the few riders who I really admired for his honesty and his frankness. We talked about a lot of different things outside of cycling and I was fortunate to really get to know him when my career stopped. I believe he was also one of the generation that was cut short in the early nineties because he was not able to fulfil the rest of his career. But he was a great rider
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 18,908
    bit of a character... popular

    sad after he was upbeat about managing his cancer in july...
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • brakelever
    brakelever Posts: 158
    what to say except a great rider , stylish , a battler to the end , 50 is to young to go and he will be missed by all his fans . rip l fignon. :(
  • hommelbier
    hommelbier Posts: 1,556
    The fact that he carried on commentating almost to the end echoes the professionalism and spirit that he also showed as a rider. Will always be remembered for the 1989 Tour rather than his two earlier TdF successes. Allez Laurent.
  • mpd62
    mpd62 Posts: 71
    Very sad news RIP Laurent Fignon.
  • emadden
    emadden Posts: 2,431
    Terribly sad news. RIP Laurent.
    **************************************************
    www.dotcycling.com
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  • frenchfighter
    frenchfighter Posts: 30,642
    ES 2.5mins, including Kelly
    http://www.steephill.tv/players/eurospo ... d=21674997
    Contador is the Greatest
  • disgruntledgoat
    disgruntledgoat Posts: 8,957
    Only just managed to get to a computer now... absolutely gutted. Thoughts to his wife and children.

    I was a bit too young to appreciate him first time round, however, those 8 seconds are about my earliest cycling memory. As I got older, the last 4 or 5 years really, I've really begun to appreciate that I missed out on a true golden age of the sport and Fignon is one of the riders I really grew an admiration for. His book only deepened that, brutally honest with himself and about everybody else too.

    RIP.
    "In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"

    @gietvangent
  • frenchfighter
    frenchfighter Posts: 30,642
    Jean-Marie Leblanc
    “Cycling is a big family and when a young former champion dies at just fifty years of age, it cannot but move us. His death has come too quickly and too soon.

    His first Tour win in 1983 was a victory for youth, audacity and talent. Fignon had character and panache. To win his first Tour at just 23 years of age was remarkable.

    If you will allow me to use something of a caricature, Hinault was the Last of the Mohicans of the great generation of the classic champions, while Fignon was the precursor of the modern champions with more panache and impertinence."

    Cofidis manager Eric Boyer
    “He was a patron, he was a fighter. He was never on the defensive and always on the attack. I remember his courage, when we trained together in the rain, the cold, the ice.

    He had the stuff of champions, but Laurent was also a very cultured man. He had a thousand ideas for cycling.”
    Contador is the Greatest
  • secretsqirrel
    secretsqirrel Posts: 2,123
    Dave_1 wrote:
    iainf72 wrote:
    The picture with the Badger is quite heartbreaking

    http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5473/ ... Nation.com)

    yes, the pic made me feel :cry: . Have spent all evening reading through all the great race reports and pictures of his era. :cry:

    Yes, I think Hinault's face in that shot really tells the story.

    A sad day for cycling.

    Au Revoir Professeur.
  • chriskempton
    chriskempton Posts: 1,245
    What sad news. He was a great cyclist with a passion for the sport and the part he had to play in it. He inspired many cyclists growing up like I did in the 80s with his flair and his joie de vivre. Rarely has any other rider expressed himself so eloquently.

    RIP Laurent
  • donrhummy
    donrhummy Posts: 2,329
    Wow. RIP Laurent. An amazing cyclist who won two TDF's.
  • moray_gub
    moray_gub Posts: 3,328
    donrhummy wrote:
    Wow. RIP Laurent. An amazing cyclist who won two TDF's.

    50 years is no age for great champ like him to pass away, very sad day .
    Gasping - but somehow still alive !
  • dennisn
    dennisn Posts: 10,601
    iainf72 wrote:
    The picture with the Badger is quite heartbreaking

    http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5473/ ... Nation.com)

    The article sure got that right. No one was more famous for 8 seconds. I remember watching that finish and thinking "8 seconds, are you kidding me".
    Only 50 years old. No one should have to go at that age. Life is just starting to get good then.
  • harrylennon13
    harrylennon13 Posts: 43
    Very sad, my thoughts are with his family and friends. R.I.P Laurent.

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