Slaying The Badger

Slaying The Badger by Richard Moore tells the story of the 1986 Tour de France, when the two best cyclists in the world, Bernard Hinault (Le Blaireau) and Greg LeMond, were pitted against each other despite being on the same team. This caused heightened drama for everyone in the race, apparently with the exception of Hinault.

The lead-up to the drama occurs in 1985 when LeMond is told to refuse to work together with the 3rd placed rider because Hinault is only 45 seconds back. In reality, Hinault was several minutes behind. As a result LeMond missed a golden opportunity at snatching yellow and winning the Tour. LeMond was rightly furious for this deception, and afterwards Hinault promised to ride for LeMond in The Tour the next year.

However, when the next year rolled around Hinault apparently had other plans. On at least 3 occasions Hinault went into the breakaway early. LeMond and many others understood this as an attempt by Hinault to steal The Tour while maintaining plausible deniability that he had deceived LeMond. Hinault, on the other hand, denies this and maintains that he was riding for LeMond the entire time and his attacks were meant to wear out the competition. This argument holds little weight given the fact that Hinault ended up pulling for those riders once they caught his breakaway.

In the end Hinault's cockiness bit him in the ass when he tried to go solo with >100km remaining. Despite building a sizable lead he was eventually caught and dropped by LeMond and the rest of the competitors.

The biggest takeaway from Slaying the Badger is that even when someone has given you their word, make sure they have reason to keep it.