Hampsten: He’s a Mountain Man : New U.S. Cycling Star Hopes to Climb in Tour de France

At first glance, 10 days into the Tour de France, it would appear that Andy Hampsten, America’s newest glamour boy of cycling, is not in a good a position to challenge for the coveted yellow jersey that he helped Greg LeMond wear last year.

Hampsten is in 48th position, 11 minutes 24 seconds behind leader Charly Mottet of France, after more than 36 hours of riding.

But ahead lie the mountains, day after day of tortuous pedaling up and over one mountain pass after another as the 74th Tour winds its way through the Pyrenees and then the French Alps en route to its July 26 arrival in Paris.

Hampsten is a mountain man, a strong candidate for the red-and-white polka-dot jersey that signifies King of the Mountains.

“A lot can happen on the flat (where the Tour de France spends its first 12 days), but the race always happens in the mountains,” Hampsten said by telephone Friday from Futuroscope, France, where he was resting after riding in a 54-mile time trial through the Loire Valley.

“On a good day in the mountains, a strong rider can make up as much as five minutes with a solid move in the final 20 kilometers. Or if a rider has a bad day, he can lose 10 to 15 minutes if he gets dropped (by the lead pack) in the final climb.”

It was in the mountains last year that Hampsten helped LeMond overcome five-time winner Bernard Hinault in a tense struggle of La Vie Claire teammates to become the first American champion.

“Hampsten won me the Tour de France,” LeMond said after the 25-year-old North Dakotan had paced his teammate in critical mountain attacks that finally overcame the French legend.

Hampsten finished fourth, one of the highest placings ever for a rookie rider.

With LeMond sidelined with shotgun wounds from a hunting accident and Hinault retired, Hampsten appeared set to become this year’s leader of the powerful French team, now known as Toshiba-Look, but he chose to switch to the inexperienced and little-known 7-Eleven team of the United States.

“Everyone in Europe advised me against it, but I felt the time was ripe for me to make a significant move in my career,” Hampsten said. “I knew it was a risk, but I had confidence that we would present a solid team.”

Hampsten won the Tour de Switzerland last month for the second year in a row. However, last year he had LeMond and Hinault as support riders, and the win was considered as much a La Vie Claire win as a Hampsten win. This year the support riders were names such as Jeff Pierce, Ron Kniefel, Davis Phinney of the United States and Raul Alcala of Mexico, a youngster from Monterrey whose aggressive ride in the Tour of Redlands helped earn him a position on the 7-Eleven team.

“I think the win in Switzerland proved that we are now a major force in international cycling,” Hampsten said. “To defend a one-second lead in the final stage is pretty much unheard of, but we did it.”

It was Kniefel, an Olympic Games road racer, who fought off Peter Winnen of the Netherlands in the final sprint, in which the winner received a 10-second bonus. Had Winnen won, he would have had 10 seconds taken off his time and would have been the overall winner, as he started only a second behind Hampsten.

The word in Europe was that the Americans, once the Tour de France began, would fall behind in the team time trial, the fourth event, and never be in a position to catch up. In the team time trial, each of the nine team riders receive the same time. It was expected that the weaker riders would pull down Hampsten and the other top 7-Eleven rider, Dag-Otto Lauritzen of Norway, who was the bronze medalist in the 1984 Olympics road race in Mission Viejo.

“Last year, the team was next to last, so I guess they had some reason to be suspect of us,” Hampsten said. “But, when we finished eighth, and pretty close in time to the leaders, it opened a lot of eyes. All the teams ahead of us were experienced teams that had been riding in the Tour for years.”

The 7-Eleven team is managed by Jim Ochowicz, a former Olympic cyclist and speedskater from Pewaukee, Wis., and consists of three front runners, Hampsten, Alcala and Lauritzen, and six support riders, known as domestiques . A domestique is a rider who may be strong enough to win a stage, but not a potential all-around winner. Their job, when needed, is to give up a bike or a wheel to a downed teammate, or carry food or drink to the team leaders, even though it means sacrificing their own position in the race.

The six are Jonathan Boyer, Bob Roll, Jeff Bradley, Phinney, Pierce and Kniefel.

“The fans like us because we’re an aggressive team, and the press likes us because we’re all a bunch of new faces and it gives them something new to write about,” Hampsten said.

“It’s fun when one of us does something special. The Europeans have a hard time figuring us out, which one of us they’re watching.

“The French press is still curious about why I would leave Toshiba-Look, one of the strongest teams, for 7-Eleven, which was here for the first time last year, but this isn’t the same team at all.”

Last year, the highest 7-Eleven finisher was Roll, who was 63rd.

Why did Hampsten make the switch?

“I knew I wanted to make a career change that would bring me closer to the American cycling scene, so I decided to do it quickly, to make the move now instead of waiting around for a couple of years. It so happened that 7-Eleven was taking a separate but parallel path, so we joined up. I knew it was a definite risk, but to me it was a risk worth taking.”

Hampsten is used to making quick decisions that astound his friends.

After failing to come close to making the 12-rider Olympic squad three years ago, Hampsten’s reaction was to turn professional, go to Europe and race against the best. His earlier credentials included a bronze medal in the 1979 world time trials and a silver medal the next year at Mexico City.

Americans took little notice of the skinny 5-foot 9-inch, 140-pound rider from Grand Forks, N.D., but the Europeans knew.

They had seen him ride in the Tour de l’Avenir, Europe’s most prestigious amateur road race. Hampsten finished only 27th, but he placed fourth in the toughest mountain stage. Then, early in 1984, while preparing for the Olympic trials, he won King of the Mountain honors in the Etoile de Sud stage race in Belgium.

In his first year as a professional, Hampsten furthered his mountain man reputation by winning the Gran Paradisio stage in the Giro d’Italiad, and then finished second to LeMond in the 1985 Coors Classic where he was acclaimed as the top climber.

This earned him a supporting role with La Vie Claire, riding to help his long-time friend, LeMond, win the yellow jersey. And, a year later, came the stunning move to the American team--with no regrets.

“Right now, there’s no other team I would rather be riding with. We started off with what was loosely called a two-year plan, but we’re doing so well in our first year that we’ve been kidding about it being a one-year plan.

“I know it might sound strange, but I am confident that when the final week (of the Tour de France) rolls around, we’ll be one of the strongest, if not the strongest, teams left.”

The first major mountain stage is Monday, a 136-mile ride from Bayonne to Pau that includes the Burdincurutchta, Bagargui, Soudet and Marie-Blanque passes.