Greg LeMond, a three-time Tour de France champion and the first American to win the stage race, has been diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia and said it is not life threatening, according to his website.
“No one ever wants to hear the word cancer but, admittedly, there is great relief, now, to know why I was feeling poorly,” he wrote, citing a few weeks of fatigue that prompted a check-up. “I should be feeling better in a few weeks and for the near future, my daily schedule will be altered only a little and I have been told that in a few months, I should be in remission. The long-term prognosis is very favorable.”
LeMond, 60, said he will change plans and not attend the Tour de France next month but looks forward to returning in 2023.
LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986, 1989 and 1990. He was the first non-European to win the Grand Tour and remains the lone American to win it after Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis’ titles were stripped for doping.
LeMond would have competed at the 1980 Moscow Olympics at age 19 if not for the U.S. boycott. He then turned professional, which at the time meant he could not compete in Olympic road racing. He retired in 1994, two years before the first Olympics with men’s professional road cyclists.
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