1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Protestors attack the PLA's troopers
As columns of tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers approached Tiananmen, many troops were set on by angry mobs who screamed, "Fascists". Dozens of soldiers were pulled from trucks, severely beaten, and left for dead. At an intersection west of the square, the body of a young soldier, who had been beaten to death, was stripped naked and hung from the side of a bus. Another soldier's corpse was strung up at an intersection east of the square.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
At 8:30 pm, army helicopters appeared above the Square, and students called for campuses to send reinforcements. At 10 pm, the founding ceremony of the Tiananmen Democracy University was held as scheduled at the base of the Goddess of Democracy. At 10:16 pm, the loudspeakers controlled by the government warned that troops might take "any measures" to enforce martial law. By 10:30 pm, news of bloodshed to the west and south of the city began trickling into the Square.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
At midnight, the students' loudspeaker announced the news that a student had been killed on West Chang'an Avenue near the Military Museum, and a somber mood settled on the Square. Li Lu, the student headquarters deputy commander, urged students to remain united in defending the Square through non-violent means. At 12:30 am, Wu'erkaixi fainted after learning that a female student at Beijing Normal University, who had left campus with him earlier in the evening, had just been killed. Wu'erkaixi was taken away by ambulance. By then, there were still 70,000–80,000 people in the Square.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
At about 12:15 am, a flare lit up the sky, and the first armored personnel vehicle appeared on the Square from the west. At 12:30 am, two more APCs arrived from the south. The students threw chunks of concrete at the vehicles. One APC stalled, perhaps from metal poles jammed into its wheels, and the demonstrators covered it with gasoline-doused blankets and set it on fire. The intense heat forced out the three occupants, who were swarmed by demonstrators. The APCs had reportedly run over tents, and many in the crowd wanted to beat the soldiers. Students formed a protective cordon and escorted the three men to the medic station by the History Museum on the east side of the Square.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
Pressure mounted on the student leadership to abandon non-violence and retaliate against the killings. At one point, Chai Ling picked up the megaphone and called on fellow students to prepare to "defend themselves" against the "shameless government". However, she and Li Lu eventually agreed to adhere to peaceful means and had the students' sticks, rocks, and glass bottles confiscated.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
At about 1:30 am, the vanguard of the 38th Army, from the XV Airborne Corps, arrived at the north and south ends of the Square, respectively. They began to seal off the Square from reinforcements of students and residents, killing more demonstrators who were trying to enter the Square. Meanwhile, soldiers of the 27th and 65th armies poured out of the Great Hall of the People to the west, and those of the 24th Army emerged from behind the History Museum to the east.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
The remaining students, numbering several thousand, were completely surrounded at the Monument of the People's Heroes in the center of the Square. At 2 am, the troops fired shots over the students' heads at the Monument. The students broadcast pleadings toward the troops: "We entreat you in peace, for democracy and freedom of the motherland, for strength and prosperity of the Chinese nation, please comply with the will of the people and refrain from using force against peaceful student demonstrators."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
At about 2:30 am, several workers near the Monument emerged with a machine gun they had captured from the troops and vowed to take revenge. They were persuaded to give up the weapon by Hou Dejian. The workers also handed over an assault rifle without ammunition, which Liu Xiaobo smashed against the marble railings of the Monument. Shao Jiang, a student who had witnessed the killings at Muxidi, pleaded with the older intellectuals to retreat, saying too many lives had been lost.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
Initially, Liu Xiaobo was reluctant, but eventually joined Zhou Duo, Gao Xin, and Hou Dejian in making the case to the student leaders for a withdrawal. Chai Ling, Li Lu, and Feng Congde initially rejected the idea of withdrawal. At 3:30 am, at the suggestion of two doctors in the Red Cross camp, Hou Dejian and Zhuo Tuo agreed to try to negotiate with the soldiers.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
They rode in an ambulance to the northeast corner of the Square and spoke with Ji Xinguo, the political commissar of the 38th Army's 336th Regiment, who relayed the request to command headquarters, which agreed to grant safe passage for the students to the southeast. The commissar told Hou, "it would be a tremendous accomplishment if you can persuade the students to leave the Square."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
At 4 am, the lights on the Square were suddenly turned off, and the government's loudspeaker announced: "Clearance of the Square begins now. We agree with the students' request to clear the Square." The students sang The Internationale and braced for a last stand. Hou returned and informed student leaders of his agreement with the troops. At 4:30 am, the lights were relit, and the troops began to advance on the Monument from all sides. At about 4:32 am, Hou Dejian took the student's loudspeaker and recounted his meeting with the military. Many students, who learned of the talks for the first time, reacted angrily and accused him of cowardice.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
The soldiers stopped about ten meters from the students—the first row of troops armed with machine guns from the prone position. Behind them, soldiers squatted and stood with assault rifles. Mixed among them were anti-riot police with clubs. Further back were tanks and APCs. Feng Congde took to the loudspeaker and explained that there was no time left to hold a meeting. Instead, a voice vote would decide the collective action of the group. Although the vote's results were inconclusive, Feng said the "gos" had prevailed.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
Within a few minutes, at about 4:35 am, a squad of soldiers in camouflaged uniform charged up the Monument and shot out the students' loudspeaker. Other troops beat and kicked dozens of students at the Monument, seizing and smashing their cameras and recording equipment. An officer with a loudspeaker called out, "you better leave, or this won't end well."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
Some of the students and professors persuaded others still sitting on the lower tiers of the Monument to get up and leave, while soldiers beat them with clubs and gunbutts and prodded them with bayonets. Witnesses heard bursts of gunfire. At about 5:10 am, the students began to leave the Monument. They linked arms and marched along a corridor to the southeast, though some departed to the north. Those who refused to leave were beaten by soldiers and ordered to join the departing procession.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
Having removed the students from the square, soldiers were ordered to relinquish their ammunition, after which they were allowed a short reprieve, from 7 am to 9 am. The soldiers were then ordered to clear the square of all debris leftover from the student occupation. The debris was either piled and burnt on the square or placed in large plastic bags that were then airlifted away by military helicopters. After the cleanup, the troops stationed at The Great Hall of the People remained confined within for the next nine days. During this time, the soldiers were left to sleep on the floors and daily fed a single packet of instant noodles shared between three men. Officers apparently suffered no such deprivation and were served regular meals apart from their troops.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
Just past 6 am on June 4, as a convoy of students who had vacated the Square were walking westward in the bicycle lane along Chang'an Avenue back to campus, three tanks pursued them from the Square, firing tear gas. One tank drove through the crowd, killing 11 students and injuring scores of others.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 3–4, Clearing the square
Later in the morning, thousands of civilians tried to re-enter the Square from the northeast on East Chang'an Avenue, which was blocked by infantry ranks. Many in the crowd were parents of the demonstrators who had been in the Square. As the crowd approached the troops, an officer sounded a warning, and the troops opened fire. The crowd scurried back down the avenue, in view of journalists in the Beijing Hotel. Dozens of civilians were shot in the back as they fled. Later, the crowds surged back toward the troops, who opened fire again. The people then fled in panic. An arriving ambulance was also caught in the gunfire. The crowd tried several more times but could not enter the Square, which remained closed to the public for two weeks.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 5 and the Tank Man
On June 5, the suppression of the protest was immortalized outside of China via video footage and photographs of a lone man standing in front of a column of tanks leaving Tiananmen Square via Chang'an Avenue. The "Tank Man" became one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century. As the tank driver tried to go around him, the "Tank Man" moved into the tank's path. He continued to stand defiantly in front of the tanks for some time, then climbed up onto the turret of the lead tank to speak to the soldiers inside. After returning to his position in front of the tanks, the man was pulled aside by a group of people.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 5 and the Tank Man
Although the fate of "Tank Man" following the demonstration is not known, paramount Chinese leader Jiang Zemin stated in 1990 that he did not think the man was killed. Time later named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 5 and the Tank Man
A stopped convoy of 37 APCs on Changan Boulevard at Muxidi was forced to abandon their vehicles after becoming stuck among an assortment of burned-out buses and military vehicles. In addition to occasional incidents of soldiers opening fire on civilians in Beijing, Western news outlets reported clashes between units of the PLA. Late in the afternoon 26 tanks, three armored personnel carriers and supporting infantry took up defensive positions facing east at Jianguomen and Fuxingmen overpasses.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 5 and the Tank Man
Shellfire was heard throughout the night, and the next morning a United States Marine in the eastern part of the city reported spotting a damaged armored vehicle that an armor-piercing shell had disabled. The ongoing turmoil in the capital disrupted everyday life flow. No editions of the People's Daily were available in Beijing on June 5, despite assurances that they had been printed. Many shops, offices, and factories were not able to open, as workers remained in their homes, and public transit services were limited to the subway and suburban bus routes.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, June 5 and the Tank Man
By and large, the government regained control in the week following the Square's military seizure. A political purge followed in which officials responsible for organizing or condoning the protests were removed, and protest leaders were jailed.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, Protests outside Beijing
After the order was restored in Beijing on June 4, protests of various sizes continued in some 80 other Chinese cities outside the international press's spotlight. In the British colony of Hong Kong, people again took to wearing black in solidarity with the demonstrators in Beijing. There were also protests in other countries, where many adopted the wearing of black armbands as well.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, Protests outside Beijing
In Shanghai, students marched on the streets on June 5 and erected roadblocks on major thoroughfares. Railway traffic was blocked. Other public transport was suspended and people prevented from getting to work. Factory workers went on a general strike and took to the streets. On June 6, the municipal government tried to clear the rail blockade, but it was met with fierce resistance from the crowds. Several people were killed from being run over by a train. On June 7, students from major Shanghai universities stormed various campus facilities to erect biers in commemoration of the dead in Beijing. The situation was gradually brought under control without deadly force. The municipal government gained recognition from the top leadership in Beijing for averting a major upheaval.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, Protests outside Beijing
In the interior cities of Xi'an, Wuhan, Nanjing, and Chengdu, many students continued protests after June 4, often erecting roadblocks. In Xi'an, students stopped workers from entering factories. In Wuhan, students blocked the Yangtze River Railway bridge and another 4,000 gathered at the railway station. About one thousand students staged a railroad "sit-in". Rail traffic on the Beijing-Guangzhou and Wuhan-Dalian lines was interrupted. The students also urged employees of major state-owned enterprises to go on strike. In Wuhan, the situation was so tense that residents reportedly began a bank run and resorted to panic-buying.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, Protests outside Beijing
Similar scenes unfolded in Nanjing. On June 7, hundreds of students staged a blockade at the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and the Zhongyangmen Railway Bridge. They were persuaded to evacuate without incident later that day, although they returned the next day to occupy the main railway station and the bridges.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, Protests outside Beijing
The atmosphere in Chengdu was more violent. On the morning of June 4, police forcibly broke up the student demonstration in Tianfu Square. The resulting violence resulted in the deaths of eight people, with hundreds injured. The most brutal attacks occurred on June 5 and 6. Witnesses estimate that 30 to 100 bodies were thrown onto a truck after a crowd broke into the Jinjiang Hotel. According to Amnesty International, at least 300 people were killed in Chengdu on June 5. Troops in Chengdu used concussion grenades, truncheons, knives, and electroshock weapon against civilians. Hospitals were ordered not to accept students, and on the second night, the ambulance service was stopped by police.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, Government's pronouncements
At a news conference on June 6, State Council spokesperson Yuan Mu announced that based on "preliminary statistics", "nearly 300 people died [...] includ[ing] soldiers", 23 students, "bad elements who deserve[d] this because of their crimes, and people who were killed by mistake." The wounded, he said, included "5,000 [police] officers and [soldiers]" and over "2,000 civilians, including the handful of lawless ruffians and the onlooking masses who do understand the situation." Military spokesperson Zhang Gong stated that no one was killed in Tiananmen Square and no one was run over by tanks in the Square.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Military action, Government's pronouncements
On June 9, Deng Xiaoping, appearing in public for the first time since the protests began, delivered a speech praising the "martyrs" (PLA soldiers who had died). Deng stated that the goal of the student movement was to overthrow the party and the state. "Their goal is to establish a totally Western-dependent bourgeois republic", Deng said of the protesters. Deng argued that protesters had complained about corruption to cover their real motive, replacing the socialist system. He said that "the entire imperialist Western world plans to make all socialist countries discard the socialist road and then bring them under the monopoly of international capital and onto the capitalist road."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll
The number of deaths and the extent of bloodshed in the Square itself have been in dispute since the events. The CCP actively suppressed discussion of casualty figures immediately after the events, and estimates rely heavily on eyewitness testimony, hospital records, and organized efforts by victims' relatives. As a result, large discrepancies exist among various casualty estimates. Initial estimates ranged from the official figure of a few hundred to several thousand.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Official figures
Official CCP announcements shortly after the event put the number who died at around 300. At the State Council press conference on June 6, spokesman Yuan Mu said that "preliminary tallies" by the government showed that about 300 civilians and soldiers died, including 23 students from universities in Beijing, along with some people he described as "ruffians". Yuan also said some 5,000 soldiers and police were wounded, along with 2,000 civilians.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Official figures
On June 19, Beijing Party Secretary Li Ximing reported to the Politburo that the government's confirmed death toll was 241, including 218 civilians (of which 36 were students), 10 PLA soldiers, and 13 People's Armed Police, along with 7,000 wounded. Mayor Chen Xitong said on June 30 that the number of injured was around 6,000.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Other estimates
On the morning of June 4, many estimates of deaths were reported, including from CCP-affiliated sources. Peking University leaflets circulated on campus suggested a death toll of between two and three thousand. The Chinese Red Cross had given a figure of 2,600 deaths but later denied having given such a figure. The Swiss Ambassador had estimated 2,700. Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times wrote on June 21 that "it seems plausible that about a dozen soldiers and policemen were killed, along with 400 to 800 civilians."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Other estimates
United States ambassador James Lilley said that, based on visits to hospitals around Beijing, a minimum of several hundred had been killed. A declassified National Security Agency cable filed on the same day estimated 180–500 deaths up to the morning of June 4. Beijing hospital records compiled shortly after the events recorded at least 478 dead and 920 wounded. Amnesty International's estimates put the number of deaths at between several hundred and close to 1,000, while a Western diplomat who compiled estimates put the number at 300 to 1,000.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Other estimates
In a 2017 disputed cable sent in the aftermath of the events at Tiananmen, British Ambassador Sir Alan Donald initially claimed, based on information from a "good friend" in the China State Council, that a minimum of 10,000 civilians died, claims which were repeated in a speech by Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, but which is an estimated number much higher than other sources provided. After the declassification, former student protest leader Feng Congde pointed out that Sir Donald later revised his estimate to 2,700–3,400 deaths, a number closer to other estimates.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Identifying the dead
The Tiananmen Mothers, a victims' advocacy group co-founded by Ding Zilin and Zhang Xianling, whose children were killed by the CCP during the crackdown, have identified 202 victims as of August 2011. In the face of CCP interference, the group has worked painstakingly to locate victims' families and collect information about the victims. Their tally had grown from 155 in 1999 to 202 in 2011. The list includes four individuals who committed suicide on or after June 4 for reasons related to their involvement in the demonstrations.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Identifying the dead
Former protester Wu Renhua of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy, an overseas group agitating for democratic reform in China, said that he was only able to identify and verify 15 military deaths. Wu asserts that if deaths from events unrelated to demonstrators were removed from the count, only seven deaths among military personnel might be counted as from being "killed in action" by rioters.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Deaths in Tiananmen Square itself
Chinese Communist Party officials have long asserted that no one died in the square itself in the early morning hours of June 4, during the "hold-out" of students' last batch in the south part of the Square. Initially, foreign media reports of a "massacre" on the Square were prevalent, though subsequently, journalists have acknowledged that most of the deaths occurred outside of the square in western Beijing.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Deaths in Tiananmen Square itself
Several people who were situated around the square that night, including former Beijing bureau chief of The Washington Post Jay Mathews and CBS correspondent Richard Roth reported that while they had heard sporadic gunfire, they could not find enough evidence to suggest that a massacre took place on the Square itself.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Deaths in Tiananmen Square itself
Taiwan-born Hou Dejian was present in the square to show solidarity with the students and claimed that he didn't see any massacre occurring in the square. He was quoted by Xiaoping Li, a former China dissident to have stated, "Some people said 200 died in the square, and others claimed that as many as 2,000 died. There were also stories of tanks running over students who were trying to leave. I have to say I did not see any of that. I was in the square until 6:30 in the morning."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Deaths in Tiananmen Square itself
Similarly, in 2011, three secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing agreed there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square itself. A Chilean diplomat who had been positioned next to a Red Cross station inside the square told his US counterparts that he did not observe any mass firing of weapons into the crowds in the Square itself, although sporadic gunfire was heard. He said that most of the troops who entered the Square were armed only with anti-riot gear. Records by the Tiananmen Mothers suggest that three students died in the Square the night of the army's push into the Square.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Deaths in Tiananmen Square itself
Chinese scholar Wu Renhua, who was present at the protests, wrote that the government's discussion of the issue was a red herring intended to absolve itself of responsibility and showcase its benevolence. Wu said that it was irrelevant whether the shooting occurred inside or outside of the Square itself, as it was still a reprehensible massacre of unarmed civilians:


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Death toll, Deaths in Tiananmen Square itself
Really, whether the fully equipped army of troops massacred peaceful, ordinary folks inside or outside the square make very little difference. It is not even worthwhile to have this discussion at all.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Arrests, punishments, and evacuations
On June 13, 1989, the Beijing Public Security Bureau released an order for the arrest of 21 students they identified as the protest leaders. These 21 most-wanted student leaders were part of the Beijing Students Autonomous Federation, which had been instrumental in the Tiananmen Square protests. Though decades have passed, this most-wanted list has never been retracted by the Chinese government.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Arrests, punishments, and evacuations
The 21 most-wanted student leaders' faces and descriptions were often broadcast on television as well. Photographs with biographies of the 21 most wanted followed in this order: Wang Dan,Wuer Kaixi, Liu Gang, Chai Ling, Zhou Fengsuo, Zhai Weimin, Liang Qingdun, Wang Zhengyun, Zheng Xuguang, Ma Shaofang, Yang Tao, Wang Zhixing, Feng Congde, Wang Chaohua, Wang Youcai, Zhang Zhiqing, Zhang Boli, Li Lu, Zhang Ming, Xiong Wei, and Xiong Yan.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Arrests, punishments, and evacuations
Each of the 21 students faced diverse experiences after their arrests or escapes; while some remain abroad with no intent to return, others have chosen to stay indefinitely, such as Zhang Ming. Only 7 of the 21 were able to escape. Some student leaders, such as Chai Ling and Wuer Kaixi, were able to escape to the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other Western nations under Operation Yellowbird, which was organized by Western intelligence agencies such as MI6 and CIA from Hong Kong, a British territory at the time.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Arrests, punishments, and evacuations
According to The Washington Post, the operation involved more than 40 people and had its roots in the "Alliance in Support of Democratic Movements in China" formed in May 1989. After the Beijing protest crackdown, this group drew up an initial list of 40 dissidents they believed could form the nucleus of a "Chinese democracy movement in exile".


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Arrests, punishments, and evacuations
The remaining student leaders were apprehended and incarcerated. Those who escaped, whether in 1989 or after, generally have had difficulty re-entering China up to this day. The Chinese government has preferred to leave the dissidents in exile. Those who attempt to re-enter, such as Wu'er Kaixi, have been simply sent back but not arrested.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Arrests, punishments, and evacuations
Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao were arrested in late 1989 for their involvement in the protests. Chinese authorities alleged they were the "black hands" behind the movement. Both Chen and Wang rejected the allegations made against them. They were put on trial in 1990 and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Others, such as Zhang Zhiqing, have essentially disappeared. After his initial arrest in January 1991 and subsequent release, nothing further is known about his situation and where he lives now. Zhang Zhiqing's role and reason for being listed on the 21 most wanted is generally unknown; this is the case for many others on the list, such as Wang Chaohua.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Arrests, punishments, and evacuations
According to the Dui Hua Foundation, citing a provincial government, 1,602 individuals were imprisoned for protest-related activities in early 1989. As of May 2012, at least two remain incarcerated in Beijing, and five others remain unaccounted for. In June 2014, it was reported that Miao Deshun was believed to be the last known prisoner incarcerated for their participation in the protests; he was last heard from a decade ago. All are reported to be suffering from mental illnesses.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Leadership changes
The Party leadership expelled Zhao Ziyang from the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). Hu Qili, another PSC member who opposed martial law but abstained from voting, was also removed from the committee. However, he was able to retain his party membership, and after "changing his opinion", he was reassigned as deputy minister in the Ministry for Machinery and Electronics Industry. Another reform-minded Chinese leader, Wan Li, was also put under house arrest immediately after he stepped out of his plane at Beijing Capital Airport upon returning from a shortened trip abroad; the authorities declared his detention to be on health grounds. When Wan Li was released from his house arrest after he finally "changed his opinion", he, like Qiao Shi, was transferred to a different position with equal rank but a mostly ceremonial role. Several Chinese ambassadors abroad claimed political asylum.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Leadership changes
Jiang Zemin, the Party Secretary of Shanghai, was promoted to General Secretary of the Communist Party. Jiang's decisive actions in Shanghai involving the World Economic Herald and his having prevented deadly violence in the city won him support from party elders in Beijing. Having put the new leadership team in place and recognizing his weakened position, Deng Xiaoping himself also bowed out of the party leadership—at least officially—by resigning his last leadership position as Chairman of the Central Military Commission later that year. He kept a low profile until 1992. According to diplomatic cables de-classified by Canada, the Swiss ambassador informed Canadian diplomats in confidence that over several months following the massacre, "every member of the Politburo Standing Committee has approached him about transferring very significant amounts of money to Swiss bank accounts."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Leadership changes
Bao Tong, Zhao Ziyang's aide, was the highest-ranking official to be formally charged with a crime connected with 1989 demonstrations. He was convicted in 1992 of "revealing state secrets and counter-revolutionary propagandizing" and served seven years in prison. To purge sympathizers of Tiananmen demonstrators from among the party's rank-and-file, the party leadership initiated a one-and-a-half-year-long rectification program to "deal strictly with those inside the party with serious tendencies toward bourgeois liberalization". Four million people were reportedly investigated for their role in the protests.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Leadership changes
More than 30,000 Communist officers were deployed to assess the "political reliability" of more than one million government officials. The authorities arrested tens if not hundreds of thousands of people across the country. Some were seized in broad daylight while they walked in the street; others were arrested at night. Many were jailed or sent to labor camps. They were often denied access to see their families and often put in cells so crowded that not everyone had space to sleep. Dissidents shared cells with murderers and rapists, and torture was not uncommon.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Media coverage, Official narrative
The official narrative constructed by the Communist Party of China on the June 4 "Incident" states that the use of force is necessary to control "political turmoil", and this also ensures the stable society that is necessary for successful economic development. Chinese leaders—including Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, who were general secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China—consistently reiterated the official narrative of the Communist Party of China when being asked about the protests by foreign journalists.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Media coverage, Official narrative
In the meantime, the Chinese government also constantly controlled public narratives about the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. When referring to the protests, the print media were required to be consistent with the Chinese government's account of the "June 4th Incident". Besides, the Chinese government prepared a white paper to explain the government's views on the protests. Later, anonymous people within the Chinese government shipped the files overseas and published the "Tiananmen Papers" in 2001.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Media coverage, Official narrative
At the 30th anniversary of the June 4 Incident, Wei Fenghe, a general of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, said in the Shangri-La Dialogue: "The June 4 Incident was a turmoil and unrest. The Central Government took decisive measures to calm the unrest and stop the turmoil, and it is because of this decision that the stability within the country can be established. For the past three decades, China has undergone tremendous changes under the leadership of the Communist Party."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Media coverage, Chinese media
The suppression of June 4 marked the end of a period of relative press freedom in China, and media workers—both foreign and domestic—faced heightened restrictions and punishment in the aftermath of the crackdown. State media reports in the immediate aftermath were sympathetic to the students. As a result, those responsible were all later removed from their posts. Two news anchors Du Xian and Xue Fei, who reported this event on June 4 and 5 respectively in the daily Xinwen Lianbo broadcast on China Central Television, were fired because they openly emoted in sympathy with the protesters.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Media coverage, Chinese media
Wu Xiaoyong, the son of the former foreign minister Wu Xueqian, was removed from the English Program Department of Chinese Radio International, ostensibly for his sympathies towards protesters. Editors and other staff at the People's Daily, including director Qian Liren and Editor-in-Chief Tan Wenrui, were also sacked because of reports in the paper that were sympathetic towards the protesters. Several editors were arrested.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Media coverage, Foreign media
With the imposition of martial law, the Chinese government cut off Western broadcasters' satellite transmissions such as CNN and CBS. Broadcasters tried to defy these orders by reporting via telephone. Video footage was smuggled out of the country, although the only network that was able to record video during the night of June 4 was Televisión Española of Spain (TVE). During the military action, some foreign journalists faced harassment from authorities. CBS correspondent Richard Roth and his cameraman were taken into custody while filing a report from the Square via mobile phone.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, Media coverage, Foreign media
Several foreign journalists who had covered the crackdown were expelled in the weeks that followed, while others were harassed by authorities or blacklisted from reentering the country. In Shanghai, foreign consulates were told that the safety of journalists who failed to heed newly enacted reporting guidelines could not be guaranteed


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Immediate aftermath, International reaction
The Chinese government's response was widely denounced, particularly by Western governments and media. Criticism came from both Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Australia, and some west Asian and Latin American countries. Many Asian countries remained silent throughout the protests; India's government responded to the massacre by ordering the state television to offer only the absolute minimum coverage of the incident to not jeopardize a thawing in relations with China and to empathize with the Chinese government. Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, among others, supported the Chinese government and denounced the protests. Overseas Chinese students demonstrated in many cities in Europe, America, the Middle East, and Asia.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Politics
The protests led to a strengthened role for the party in domestic affairs. In its aftermath, many of the freedoms introduced during the 1980s were rescinded, as the party returned to a conventional Leninist mold and re-established firm control over the press, publishing, and mass media. The protests were also a blow to the separation-of-powers model established following the Cultural Revolution, whereby the President was a symbolic position. At the same time, the real centers of power—i.e., the General Secretary of the Communist Party, the Premier, and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission—were intended for different people, to prevent the excesses of Mao-style personal rule.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Politics
When President Yang Shangkun asserted his reserve powers from his membership in the Central Military Commission and openly split with general secretary Zhao Ziyang over the use of force, to side with Premier Li Peng and Central Military Commission chairman Deng Xiaoping, the official policy became inconsistent and incoherent, significantly impeding the exercise of power. By 1993, General Secretary, Central Military Commission chairman, and President were consolidated into the same person, a practice that has been continued since.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Politics
In 1989, neither the Chinese military nor the Beijing police had sufficient anti-riot gear, such as rubber bullets and tear gas. After the Tiananmen Square protests, riot police in Chinese cities were equipped with non-lethal equipment for riot control. The protests led to increased spending on internal security and to an expanded role for the People's Armed Police in suppressing urban protests.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Politics
The restrictions were only loosened after a few years had passed, especially after Deng's "1992 southern tour." Privately run print media then again flourished. Private newspapers increased from 250 in the 1980s to over 7,000 by 2003. Provincially-run, satellite TV stations sprang up all over the country and challenged the market share of state-run CCTV. The leadership also stepped away from promoting communism as an all-encompassing belief system. State-approved religious organizations increased their membership significantly, and traditional beliefs suppressed during the Mao era re-appeared. This state-sanctioned plurality also created an environment for unsanctioned forms of spirituality and worship to grow. To reduce the need for controversial methods of state control, Protestants, Buddhists, and Taoists were often used by the state as "approved" denominations to "fight against cults" such as Falun Gong, playing the sects against each other.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Politics
As the party departed from the orthodox communism it was founded upon, much of its attention was focused on the cultivation of nationalism as an alternative ideology. This policy largely succeeded in tying the party's legitimacy to China's "national pride", turning domestic public opinion back in its favor. This is perhaps most prominently seen in May 1999, when the United States bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The bombings saw an outpouring of nationalist sentiment and increased support for the party as the foremost advocate of China's national interest.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Economy
After the Tiananmen Square protests, many business analysts downgraded their outlook for China's economic future. The violent response to the protests was one of the factors that led to a delay in China's acceptance in the World Trade Organization, which was not completed until twelve years later, in 2001. Furthermore, bilateral aid to China decreased from $3.4 billion in 1988 to $700 million in 1990.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Economy
Loans to China were suspended by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and foreign governments; China's credit rating was lowered; tourism revenue decreased from US$2.2 billion to US$1.8 billion; and foreign direct investment commitments were canceled. However, there was a rise in government defense spending from 8.6% in 1986, to 15.5% in 1990, reversing a previous 10-year decline.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Economy
In the aftermath of the protests, the government sought again to centralize control over the economy, though the changes were short-lived. Sensing that conservative policies had again taken a foothold within the party, Deng, now retired from all of his official positions, launched his "southern tour" in 1992, visiting various cities in the country's most prosperous regions while advocating for further economic reforms. Partly in response to Deng, by the mid-1990s, the country was again pursuing market liberalization on a scale even greater than those seen in the initial stages of the reforms in the 1980s.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Economy
Although political liberals were purged from within the party, many of those who were economically liberal remained. The economic shocks caused by the events of 1989, in retrospect, had only a minor and temporary effect on China's economic growth. Indeed, with many previously aggrieved groups now regarding political liberalization as a lost cause, more of their energy was spent on economic activities. The economy would quickly regain momentum into the 1990s.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, the Tiananmen Square protests led to fears that China would renege on its commitments under one country, two systems, following the impending handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom in 1997. In response, Governor Chris Patten tried to expand the franchise for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, which led to friction with Beijing. For many Hong Kongers, Tiananmen served as the turning point when they lost trust in the Beijing government. The event, coupled with general uncertainty about the status of Hong Kong after the transfer of sovereignty, led to a sizable exodus of Hong Kongers to Western countries such as Canada and Australia before 1997.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Hong Kong
There have been large candlelight vigils attended by tens of thousands in Hong Kong every year since 1989, even after the transfer of power to China in 1997. Despite that, the June 4th Museum closed in July 2016, after only two years in its location. The group that runs the museum, the Hong Kong Alliance, has started to crowdfund money to open the museum in a new location. A virtual version of the museum released online in August 2021 has also been blocked by Chinese telecom companies.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, Hong Kong
The events of Tiananmen in 1989 have become permanently etched in the public consciousness, perhaps more than anywhere else outside mainland China. The events continue to strongly impact perceptions of China, its government, attitudes towards democracy, and the extent to which Hong Kongers should identify as "Chinese". The events of June 4 are seen as representative of the Chinese brand of authoritarianism, and they are often invoked by pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong, especially in relation to democratic reform in Hong Kong and the territory's relationship with Beijing. Academic studies indicate that those who supported the Tiananmen Square movement's rehabilitation had a tendency to support democratization in the territory and the election of pro-democracy parties.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, China's image internationally
The Chinese government drew widespread condemnation for its suppression of the protests. In the immediate aftermath, China seemed to be becoming a pariah state, increasingly isolated internationally. This was a significant setback for the leadership, who had courted international investment for much of the 1980s, as the country emerged from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. However, Deng Xiaoping and the core leadership vowed to continue economic liberalization policies after 1989. From there on, China would work domestically and internationally to reshape its national image from that of a repressive regime to that of a benign global economic and military partner.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, China's image internationally
In the 1990s, China attempted to demonstrate its willingness to participate in international economic and defense institutions to secure investment for continued economic reforms. The government signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1992, the Convention on Chemical Weapons in 1993, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Whereas China had been a member of only 30 international organizations in 1986, it was a member of over 50 by 1997. China also sought to diversify its external partnerships, establishing good diplomatic relations with post-Soviet Russia, and welcoming Taiwanese business in lieu of Western investment. China expedited negotiations with the World Trade Organization and established relations with Indonesia, Israel, South Korea, and others in 1992. While China was a net recipient of aid throughout the 1980s, its growing economic and military role transformed it into a net provider of aid.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, China's image internationally
Furthermore, the government has successfully promoted China as an attractive destination for investment by emphasizing its skilled workers, comparatively low wages, established infrastructure, and sizable consumer base. Increased foreign investment in the country led many world leaders to believe that by constructively engaging China in the global marketplace, larger political reforms would inevitably follow. At the same time, the explosion of commercial interest in the country opened the way for multinational corporations to turn a blind eye to politics and human rights in favor of focusing on business interests. Since then, Western leaders who were previously critical of China have sometimes paid lip service to the legacy of Tiananmen in bilateral meetings, but the substance of discussions revolved around business and trade interests.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, European Union and the United States arms embargo
The European Union and United States embargo on armament sales to China, put in place due to the violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests, remains in place today. China has been calling for a lift of the ban for years and has had a varying amount of support from European Union members. Since 2004, China has portrayed the ban as "outdated" and damaging to China–European Union relations. In early 2004, French President Jacques Chirac spearheaded a movement within the European Union to lift the ban, Chirac effort being supported by German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, European Union and the United States arms embargo
However, the passing of the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China, in March 2005, increased tensions between mainland China and Taiwan, damaging attempts to lift the ban; and several European Union Council members retracted their support for a lift of the ban. Moreover, Schröder's successor Angela Merkel opposed lifting the ban. Members of the United States Congress had also proposed restrictions on the transfer of military technology to the European Union if the latter lifted the ban. The United Kingdom also opposed the embargo lifting when it took charge of the European Union presidency in July 2005.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Longer-term impact, European Union and the United States arms embargo
Besides, the European Parliament has consistently opposed the lifting of the arms embargo to China. Though its agreement is not necessary for lifting the ban, many argue it reflects the will of the European people better as it is the only directly elected European body. The arms embargo has limited China's options in seeking military hardware. Among the sources that were sought included the former Soviet bloc that it had a strained relationship with as a result of the Sino-Soviet split. Other willing suppliers have previously included Israel and South Africa, but American pressure has restricted this co-operation.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Censorship in China
The Communist Party of China continues to forbid discussions about the Tiananmen Square protests taken measures to block or censor related information, in an attempt to suppress the public's memory of the Tiananmen Square protests. Textbooks contain little, if any, information about the protests. After the protests, officials banned controversial films and books and shut down many newspapers. Within a year, 12% of all newspapers, 8% of all publishing companies, 13% of all social science periodicals, and more than 150 films were either banned or shut down.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Censorship in China
The government also announced that it had seized 32 million contraband books and 2.4 million video and audio cassettes. Access to media and Internet resources about the subject are either restricted or blocked by censors. Banned literature and films include Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Collection of June Fourth Poems, The Critical Moment: Li Peng diaries and any writings of Zhao Ziyang or his aide Bao Tong, including Zhao's memoirs. However, contraband and Internet copies of these publications can still be found.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Censorship in China
Print media that contain references to the protests must be consistent with the government's version of events. Domestic and foreign journalists are detained, harassed, or threatened, as are their Chinese colleagues and any Chinese citizens who they interview. Thus, Chinese citizens are typically reluctant to speak about the protests because of potentially negative repercussions. Many young people who were born after 1980 are unfamiliar with the events and are therefore apathetic about politics.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Censorship in China
Youth in China are sometimes unaware of the events, the symbols which are associated with them such as the tank man, or the significance of the date of the massacre June 4 itself. Some older intellectuals no longer aspire to implement political change. Instead, they focus on economic issues. Some political prisoners have refused to talk to their children about their involvement in the protests out of fear of putting them at risk.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Censorship in China
While public discussions about the events have become socially taboo, private discussions about them continue to occur despite frequent interference and harassment by the authorities. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo remained in China in order to speak out about Tiananmen in the 1990s despite the fact that he received offers of asylum; he faced constant surveillance. Zhang Xianling and Ding Zilin, the mothers of victims who lost their lives in 1989, founded the Tiananmen Mothers organization and were particularly outspoken about the humanitarian aspects of the protests.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Censorship in China
The authorities mobilize security forces, including members of the People's Armed Police, every year on June 4 in order to prevent public displays of remembrance, with an especially heavy security presence on the anniversaries of major events such as the 20th anniversary of the protests in 2009 and the 25th anniversary of the protests in 2014.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Censorship in China
On the 30th anniversary of the protests in 2019, the renowned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei wrote that "autocratic and totalitarian regimes fear facts because they have built their power on unjust foundations" and he also wrote that memory is important: "without it there is no such thing as a civilised society or nation" because "our past is all we have."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Censorship in China
Journalists have frequently been denied entry to the Square on the anniversaries of the massacre. Also, the authorities are known to have detained foreign journalists and increase surveillance of prominent human rights activists during this time of year. Internet searches on "June 4 Tiananmen Square" made within China return censored results or result in temporarily severed server connections. Specific web pages with select keywords are censored while other websites, such as those which support the overseas Chinese democracy movement, are blocked wholesale.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Censorship in China
The policy is much more stringent with regard to Chinese-language sites than it is with regard to foreign-language ones. Social media censorship is more stringent in the weeks leading up to the anniversaries of the massacre; even oblique references to the protests and seemingly unrelated terms are usually very aggressively patrolled and censored. In January 2006, Google agreed to censor their mainland China site to remove information about Tiananmen and other subjects which are considered sensitive by the authorities. Google withdrew its cooperation on censorship in January 2010.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Calls for the government to reassess
The party's official stance towards the incident is that the use of force was necessary to control a "political disturbance" and that it ensured the stability necessary for economic prosperity. Chinese leaders, including former paramount leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, reiterate this line when questioned by the foreign press.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Calls for the government to reassess
Over the years, some Chinese citizens have called for a reassessment of the protests and compensation from the government to victims' families. One group in particular, Tiananmen Mothers, seeks compensation, vindication for victims, and the right to receive donations from within the mainland and from abroad. Zhang Shijun, a former soldier who was involved in the military crackdown, published an open letter to President Hu Jintao that sought to have the government reevaluate its position on the protests. He was subsequently arrested and taken from his home.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Calls for the government to reassess
Although the Chinese government never officially acknowledged relevant accusations when it came to the incident, in April 2006, a payment was made to one of the victims' mother, the first publicized case of the government offering redress to a Tiananmen-related victim's family. The payment was termed a "hardship assistance" and was given to Tang Deying (唐德英), whose son Zhou Guocong (simplified Chinese: 周国聪; traditional Chinese: 周國聰) died at age 15 while in police custody in Chengdu on June 6, 1989, two days after the Chinese Army dispersed the Tiananmen protesters. She was reportedly paid CNY70,000 (approximately US$10,250). This has been welcomed by various Chinese activists. However, some regarded it as a measure to maintain social stability and not believed to herald a changing of the party's official position.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Chinese leaders voicing regret
Before his death in 1998, Yang Shangkun told army doctor Jiang Yanyong that June 4 was the most serious mistake committed by the Communist Party in its history, a mistake that Yang himself could not correct, but one that certainly will eventually be corrected. Zhao Ziyang remained under house arrest until his death in 2005. Zhao's aide Bao Tong has repeatedly called on the government to reverse its verdict on the demonstrations.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, Chinese leaders voicing regret
Chen Xitong, the mayor of Beijing, who read the martial law order and was later disgraced by a political scandal, expressed regret in 2012, a year before his death, for the death of innocent civilians. Premier Wen Jiabao reportedly suggested reversing the government's position on Tiananmen in party meetings before he departed from politics in 2013, only to be rebuffed by his colleagues.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, United Nations report
During its 41st session, from November 3 to 21, 2008, the UN Committee Against Torture expressed concern over the lack of investigations into the reports of people "killed, arrested or disappeared on or following the 4 June 1989 Beijing suppression." The Chinese government, it stated, had also failed to inform relatives of those individuals' fate, despite relatives' numerous requests. Meanwhile, those responsible for the use of excessive force had not "faced any sanction, administrative or criminal." The Committee recommended that the Chinese government should take all of those steps, plus "offer apologies and reparation as appropriate and prosecute those found responsible for excessive use of force, torture and other ill-treatment."


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Contemporary issues, United Nations report
In December 2009, the Chinese government responded to the committee's recommendations by saying that the government had closed the case concerning the "political turmoil in the spring and summer of 1989". It also stated that the "practice of the past 20 years has made it clear that the timely and decisive measures taken by the Chinese Government at the time were necessary and correct". It claimed that the labeling of the "incident as 'the Democracy Movement'" is a "distortion in the nature of the incident". According to the Chinese Government, such observations were "inconsistent with the Committee's responsibilities".


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Gallery
A banner in support of the June Fourth Student Movement in Shanghai Fashion Store (formerly the Xianshi Company Building)


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Gallery
Mourning banners hung near the South Gate of Beijing University taken a few days after the crackdown.


1989 Tipperary Senior Hurling Championship
The 1989 Tipperary Senior Hurling Championship was the 99th staging of the Tipperary Senior Hurling Championship since its establishment by the Tipperary County Board in 1887.


1989 Tipperary Senior Hurling Championship
Clonoulty-Rossmore won the championship after a 1-11 to 1-09 defeat of Holycross-Ballycahill in the final at Semple Stadium. It was their second championship title overall and their first title since 1888.


1989 Tirreno–Adriatico
The 1989 Tirreno–Adriatico was the 24th edition of the Tirreno–Adriatico cycle race and was held from 9 March to 15 March 1989. The race started in Bacoli and finished in San Benedetto del Tronto. The race was won by Tony Rominger of the Chateau d'Ax team.


1989 Tokyo Indoor
The 1989 Tokyo Indoor, also known by its sponsored  name Seiko Super Tennis, was a men's tennis tournament played on indoor carpet courts at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan that was part of the 1989 Nabisco Grand Prix. The tournament was held from 18 October through 23 October 1989. It was a major tournament of the Grand Prix tennis circuit and  matches were the best of three sets.


1989 Tokyo Indoor, Finals, Doubles
Kevin Curren /  David Pate defeated  Andrés Gómez /  Slobodan Živojinović 4–6, 6–3, 7–6


1989 Tokyo Indoor – Doubles
Andrés Gómez and Slobodan Živojinović were the defending champions, but lost in the final this year.


1989 Tokyo Indoor – Doubles
Kevin Curren and David Pate won the title, defeating Gómez and Živojinović 4–6, 6–3, 7–6 in the final.


1989 Tokyo Indoor – Singles
Boris Becker was the defending champion, but did not participate this year.


1989 Tokyo Indoor – Singles
Aaron Krickstein won the tournament, beating Carl-Uwe Steeb in the final, 6–2, 6–2.


1989 Toledo Rockets football team
The 1989 Toledo Rockets football team was an American football team that represented the University of Toledo in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) during the 1988 NCAA Division I-A football season. In their eighth season under head coach Dan Simrell, the Rockets compiled a 6–5 record (6–2 against MAC opponents), finished in a tie for second place in the MAC, and were outscored by all opponents by a combined total of 272 to 254.


1989 Toledo Rockets football team
The team's statistical leaders included Mark Melfi with 1,632 passing yards, Wayne Goodwin with 859 rushing yards, and Rick Isaiah with 743 receiving yards.


1989 Tongatapu Inter Club Championship
The 1989 season of the Tongatapu Inter Club Championship was the 16th season of top flight association football competition in Tonga. Navutoka FC won the championship for the first time.


1989 Tooheys 1000
The 1989 Tooheys 1000 was the 30th running of the Bathurst 1000 touring car race. It was held on 1 October 1989 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst, Australia. The race was held for cars eligible under International Group A touring car regulations with three engine capacity classes.


1989 Tooheys 1000
The race was won by the Dick Johnson Racing Ford Sierra of Dick Johnson and John Bowe. The pair lead almost the whole of the race and was only seriously threatened by the Allan Moffat run Sierra of German drivers Klaus Niedzwiedz and Frank Biela. Third and fourth places were awarded to the official factory Nissan team entries with the Nissan Skyline of Jim Richards and Mark Skaife finishing third.


1989 Tooheys 1000
The Tooheys Top Ten runoff for pole position was notable for Peter Brock discharging his Ford Sierra's engine bay Halon gas fire extinguisher which was angled across the intercooler substantially boosting the power of the engine in the crucial drive up the mountain straight. As this was not technically against the rules the scrutineers did not find any misconduct, but the Entrants Association levied a $5000 fine on Brock for a moral infringement of the rules.


1989 Tooheys 1000, Class structure, Class 1
Class 1 (Over 2501cc)  featured the turbocharged Ford Sierras, Nissan Skylines, Toyota Supras and Mitsubishi Starions, the V8 Holden Commodores and BMW 635CSis.


1989 Tooheys 1000, Class structure, Class 2
Class 2 (1601 to 2500cc)  comprised BMW M3s and a Nissan Gazelle.


1989 Tooheys 1000, Class structure, Class 3
Class 3 (Up to 1600cc)  was contested exclusively by various models of Toyota Corolla.


1989 Tooheys 1000, Tooheys Top Ten
The Tooheys Top Ten was contested on the Saturday by the fastest ten cars from Friday to determine the final positions for the first five rows on the grid. For the first time since the advent of the Top Ten in 1978, television broadcaster Channel 7 aired the runoff in a one-hour package on the Saturday afternoon rather than the half-hour package of previous years. The extra time meant that each lap was shown in full for the first time rather than just sections of the laps run.


1989 Tooheys 1000, Tooheys Top Ten
* Peter Brock's only ever pole position at Bathurst where he didn't drive a V8 powered Holden. It was his first Bathurst pole since 1983 (and the last he would set himself), and his first front row start since 1984. It was also his record 6th Bathurst pole having been fastest qualifier in 1974, 1977, 1978 and 1979 and 1983. * Andrew Bagnall crashed his Ford Sierra RS500 on top of The Mountain during the runoff and was allowed to start from 10th position, much like Dick Johnson who crashed his Ford XE Falcon in the runoff in 1983.


1989 Tooheys 1000, Tooheys Top Ten
Unlike Johnson  in 1983 however, Bagnall's car was able to be repaired and did not need to be replaced. * 1989 was the first time that a V8 Holden had not qualified for the Top Ten runoff. The fastest Holden was the #16 Holden Racing Team VL Commodore SS Group A SV of Larry Perkins and defending race winner Tomas Mezera in 11th with a 2:19.11 set by Perkins, missing out by only 0.01 seconds to Bagnall's Sierra.


1989 Tooheys 1000, Tooheys Top Ten
* 1989 saw the only time between 1981 and 2003 that a car in which Larry Perkins was listed as a driver did not feature in the runoff. * 1989 saw the first and so far only time where every car in the Top Ten runoff was powered by a turbocharged engine, with nine Sierra RS500's and the lone factory Nissan Skyline of Jim Richards making up the 10 runners.


1989 Toray Pan Pacific Open
The 1989 Toray Pan Pacific Open was a women's tennis tournament played on indoor carpet courts at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium in Tokyo in Japan and was part of the Category 4 tier of the 1989 WTA Tour. The tournament ran from January 31 through February 5, 1989. First-seeded Martina Navratilova won the singles title.


1989 Toray Pan Pacific Open, Finals, Doubles
Katrina Adams /  Zina Garrison defeated  Mary Joe Fernández /  Claudia Kohde-Kilsch 6–3, 3–6, 7–6(7–5)


1989 Toray Pan Pacific Open – Doubles
Pam Shriver and Helena Suková were the defending champions but did not compete that year.


1989 Toray Pan Pacific Open – Doubles
Katrina Adams and Zina Garrison won in the final 6–3, 3–6, 7–6 against Mary Joe Fernández and Claudia Kohde-Kilsch.


1989 Toray Pan Pacific Open – Doubles, Seeds
Champion seeds are indicated in bold text while text in italics indicates the round in which those seeds were eliminated.


1989 Toray Pan Pacific Open – Singles
Pam Shriver was the defending champion but did not compete that year.


1989 Toray Pan Pacific Open – Singles
First-seeded Martina Navratilova won in the final 6–7, 6–3, 7–6 against Lori McNeil.


1989 Toray Pan Pacific Open – Singles, Seeds
A champion seed is indicated in bold text while text in italics indicates the round in which that seed was eliminated. The top four seeds received a bye to the second round.


1989 Torneo Descentralizado
The 1989 Torneo Descentralizado, the top tier of Peruvian football was played by 42 teams in the format of Regional Tournaments. The national champion was Unión Huaral.


1989 Torneo Descentralizado
Due to the 1989 Copa América, a minor tournament (1989 Torneo Plácido Galindo) was played during the season by 42 clubs. The winner would qualify for the Liguilla Regional II Playoffs.


1989 Torneo Descentralizado, Regional I, Liguilla
Sporting Cristal ganó un solo partido y empató cuatro. Derrotó 3-0 al Alianza Atlético y empató a cero goles con los otro cuatro equipos.


1989 Torneo Descentralizado, Regional I, Final Play-off
El martes 16 de Mayo de 1989 Sporting Cristal y Alianza Atlético disputan la final en el estadio Nacional ante 7,332 espectadores. Los goles fueron marcados por Martin Dall'Orso a los 24 minutos del primer tiempo y por Francesco Manassero a los 42 minutos del segundo tiempo.


1989 Torneo Godó
The 1989 Torneo Godó was a men's professional tennis tournament that was played on outdoor clay courts at the Real Club de Tenis Barcelona in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain that was part of the Championship Series of the 1989 Grand Prix circuit. It was the 37th edition of the tournament and took place from 18 September to 24 September 1989. Unseeded Andrés Gómez won the singles title.


1989 Torneo Godó, Finals, Doubles
Gustavo Luza /  Christian Miniussi defeated  Sergio Casal /  Tomáš Šmíd 7–6, 5–7, 6–3


1989 Torneo Plácido Galindo
The Torneo Plácido Galindo was played during the 1989 Copa América. The 42 football clubs were divided into 5 groups and the top teams advanced to the quarterfinals. Although Defensor Lima won the tournament, they qualified to Regional II's Liguilla Playoffs.


1989 Torneo di Viareggio
The 1989 winners of the Torneo di Viareggio (in English, the Viareggio Tournament, officially the Viareggio Cup World Football Tournament Coppa Carnevale), the annual youth football tournament held in Viareggio, Tuscany, are listed below.


1989 Torneo di Viareggio, Format
The 16 teams are seeded in 4 groups. Each team from a group meets the others in a single tie. The winner of each group progress to the final knockout stage.


1989 Toronto Argonauts season
The 1989 Toronto Argonauts finished in 2nd place in the East Division with a 7–11 record. They appeared in the East Semi-Final. This was the first season at the SkyDome for the Argos.


1989 Toronto Argonauts season, Regular season
In a game against the Ottawa Rough Riders on October 9, 1989, Pinball Clemons scored his first CFL touchdown.


1989 Toronto Blue Jays season
The 1989 Toronto Blue Jays season was the franchise's 13th season of Major League Baseball. It resulted in the Blue Jays finishing first in the American League East with a record of 89 wins and 73 losses. They lost the ALCS in five games to the eventual World Series champion Oakland Athletics. It was the team's last season at Exhibition Stadium, before moving to SkyDome halfway into the season. The Blue Jays hit eight grand slams, the most in MLB in 1989.


1989 Toronto Blue Jays season, Regular season
The regular season would represent a turning point for the Blue Jays in many different ways. The Blue Jays started the 1989 season in Kansas City against the Royals. Behind the pitching of Jimmy Key, the Jays won the first game of the season 4-3. The rest of the month would result in a losing record for the Jays. After the first month of the season, the Blue Jays had 10 wins and 20 losses and sat 6.5 games behind the Baltimore Orioles in the standings. The result was that Pat Gillick made his first trade in 605 days.


1989 Toronto Blue Jays season, Regular season
On April 30, Gillick sent Jesse Barfield to the New York Yankees in exchange for Al Leiter. The reason for the deal was that management was convinced that Rob Ducey was ready to be an everyday outfielder. The spot eventually went to the surprising Junior Felix that year, and Ducey never became the everyday player the Jays imagined him to be.


1989 Toronto Blue Jays season, Regular season
The Blue Jays had never fired a manager in the middle of the season. After the Jays were swept by the Minnesota Twins in a three-game series, including a 13-1 loss in the final game of the series, the Jays had 12 wins and 24 losses. The Jays had also lost 15 of their last 19 games. Gillick decided that a change was needed. On Monday, May 15, Jimy Williams had become the first Jays manager to be fired in mid-season. Williams would be replaced by Cito Gaston, the first black manager in the history of the franchise.


1989 Toronto Blue Jays season, Regular season
The Blue Jays' last game at Exhibition Stadium was against the first team they played there, the Chicago White Sox. From there, the Blue Jays opened the new Skydome with a loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. On September 30, they clinched the American League East division title at the new ballpark.


1989 Toronto Blue Jays season, Player stats, Batting, Starters by position
Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in


1989 Toronto International Film Festival
The 14th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 7 and September 16, 1989. In Country by Norman Jewison was selected as the opening film.


1989 Tour de France
The 1989 Tour de France was the 76th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race consisted of 21 stages and a prologue, over 3,285 km (2,041 mi). It started on 1 July 1989 in Luxembourg before taking an anti-clockwise route through France to finish in Paris on 23 July. The race was won by Greg LeMond of the AD Renting–W-Cup–Bottecchia team. It was the second overall victory for the American, who had spent the previous two seasons recovering from a near-fatal hunting accident. In second place was previous two-time Tour winner Laurent Fignon (Super U–Raleigh–Fiat), ahead of Pedro Delgado (Reynolds), the defending champion.


1989 Tour de France
Delgado started the race as the favourite, but lost almost three minutes on his principal rivals when he missed his start time in the prologue individual time trial. The race turned out to be a two-man battle between LeMond and Fignon, with the pair trading off the race leader's yellow jersey several times. Fignon managed to match LeMond in the prologue, but in the other three individual time trials he lost time to LeMond, who took advantage of aerodynamic elbow-rest handlebars formerly used in triathlon events. Delgado launched several attacks in the mountain stages to eventually finish third, while LeMond rode defensively to preserve his chances. Fignon rode well in the mountains, including a strong performance at Alpe d'Huez which gave him the race lead on stage 17.


1989 Tour de France
In the closest Tour in history, LeMond was trailing Fignon by fifty seconds at the start of the final stage, an individual time trial into Paris. LeMond was not expected to be able to make up this deficit, but he completed the 24.5 km (15.2 mi) stage at an average speed of 54.545 km/h (33.893 mph), the fastest individual time trial ever ridden in the Tour de France up to that point, and won the stage.


1989 Tour de France
Fignon's time was fifty-eight seconds slower than LeMond's, costing him the victory and giving LeMond his second Tour title by a margin of only eight seconds. From stage 5 onward, LeMond and Fignon were the only two men to lead the race. The two riders were never separated by more than fifty-three seconds throughout the event. Owing to its competitive nature, the 1989 Tour is often ranked among the best in the race's history.


1989 Tour de France
The PDM–Concorde team was the winner of the team classification and had four cyclists in the top ten of the general classification. They also won four of the five secondary individual classifications: Sean Kelly won both the points and intermediate sprints classifications, Gert-Jan Theunisse won the mountains classification and Steven Rooks won the combination classification. The young rider classification was won by Fabrice Philipot from the Toshiba team.


1989 Tour de France, Teams
The 1989 Tour had a starting field of twenty-two teams of nine cyclists. Prior to 1989, the Société du Tour de France, organisers of the Tour, chose freely which teams they invited to the event. For 1989, the sport's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Cyclisme Professionnel (FICP), demanded that the highest-ranked teams in the FICP Road World Rankings would receive an automatic invitation. The Tour organisers relented in exchange for being allowed to run the race over 23 days instead of the original 21-day period given by the FICP.


1989 Tour de France, Teams
Eighteen teams received their invitations through the FICP rankings, while the organisers allocated four teams with wild cards. The Ariostea team would have been eligible to start through their ranking, but decided against competing. This allowed Greg LeMond's AD Renting–W-Cup–Bottecchia team to enter the race. The wild cards were given out to the teams of Kelme, Café de Colombia, Fagor–MBK, and 7-Eleven. Not invited was the Teka team, which failed to accumulate enough points in the World Rankings after Reimund Dietzen had to leave the 1989 Vuelta a España following a career-ending crash. Of the 198 cyclists starting the race, 39 were riding the Tour de France for the first time. The youngest rider was Jean-Claude Colotti (RMO), who turned 22 years old on the day of the prologue; the oldest, at 36 years and 139 days, was Helmut Wechselberger (Paternina).


1989 Tour de France, Pre-race favourites
Before the 1989 Tour began, Pedro Delgado (Reynolds), the defending champion, was considered a strong favourite to win the race. He had taken the title the previous year in convincing fashion, with a lead of over seven minutes. Prior to the Tour, Delgado had also won the 1989 Vuelta a España, and was therefore considered to be in good form. However, controversy around a failed doping test during the 1988 Tour put a cloud of suspicion over the reigning champion.


1989 Tour de France, Pre-race favourites
Next to Delgado, Laurent Fignon (Super U–Raleigh–Fiat) was also given a good chance for overall victory. The Frenchman had won the Tour in 1983 and 1984, but his form in subsequent years had been inconsistent. According to German news magazine Der Spiegel, the cycling world had "written [Fignon] off" during four years with few victories after 1984. In 1989 however, a victory at Milan–San Remo and more importantly, the three-week Grand Tour in Italy, the Giro d'Italia, had propelled Fignon back into the spotlight. A strong Super U team surrounding him was also considered to be in his favour.


1989 Tour de France, Pre-race favourites
Stephen Roche (Fagor–MBK) had won the Tour in 1987 ahead of Delgado, but missed the race in 1988 with a knee injury. A strong spring season with victory at the Tour of the Basque Country, second place at Paris–Nice and a top-ten placing at the Giro d'Italia made it seem that Roche was finding his form again.


1989 Tour de France, Pre-race favourites
Several other riders were named as favourites for a high place in the general classification. Charly Mottet (RMO), fourth overall in 1987, had won the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré shortly before the Tour started and was ranked number one in the FICP Road World Rankings, a position that had been held by Sean Kelly (PDM–Concorde) for five straight years. Kelly had never been a strong contender for the general classification, despite an overall victory at the 1988 Vuelta a España.


1989 Tour de France, Pre-race favourites
Next to targeting a high place in the overall rankings, Kelly hoped to secure a record-breaking fourth win in the points classification. Kelly's PDM squad also had two talented Dutch riders in their ranks with hopes of a high finish: Steven Rooks, who had been second the year before, and Gert-Jan Theunisse. Since PDM had elected not to start either the Giro d'Italia or the Vuelta a España earlier in the season, the team hoped that their riders, without an additional three-week race in their legs, would be fresher than their rivals. Other favourites included Erik Breukink (Panasonic–Isostar), Andrew Hampsten (7-Eleven), Steve Bauer (Helvetia–La Suisse), Fabio Parra (Kelme) and Robert Millar (Z–Peugeot).


1989 Tour de France, Pre-race favourites
According to Sports Illustrated, Greg LeMond's "name was never mentioned among the pre-race favourites". LeMond had finished every Tour he had entered up to this point on the podium, including the first-ever victory for an American rider in 1986. His career was interrupted when he was accidentally shot by his brother-in-law in a hunting accident on Easter of 1987. About 60 pellets hit his body; his life was saved by emergency surgery, but LeMond struggled to return to professional cycling, leaving the successful PDM team at the end of 1988 and joining the relatively small ADR team.


1989 Tour de France, Pre-race favourites
His team was not considered strong enough to help him during stage races, and ADR's financial troubles meant that LeMond had not been paid by his team in 1989 before the Tour started. Even the fee for late entry into the Tour was secured only when LeMond arranged additional sponsorship. With poor performances at both the inaugural Tour de Trump and the Giro d'Italia, LeMond's chances at the Tour de France looked slim. However, he had placed second in the final-stage individual time trial at the Giro, taking more than a minute out of eventual winner Fignon. This led to Super U's team manager Cyrille Guimard commenting to Fignon: "LeMond will be dangerous at the Tour."


1989 Tour de France, Route and stages
The route of the 1989 Tour was unveiled in October 1988. With a distance of 3,285 km (2,041 mi), it was the shortest edition of the Tour in more than eighty years. The race started on 1 July with a prologue individual time trial, followed by 21 stages. On the second day of the race, two stages were held: a plain road stage followed by a team time trial.


1989 Tour de France, Route and stages
There was a transfer from Wasquehal to Dinard on a rest day between stages 4 and 5, and a second transfer between L'Isle-d'Abeau and Versailles after the finish of the penultimate stage. The second rest day was after the mountain time trial stage 15. The race lasted 23 days, including the two rest days, and ended on 23 July.


1989 Tour de France, Route and stages
The race started outside France, in Luxembourg, and passed through the Wallonia region of Belgium, before taking an anti-clockwise route through France, starting in the northwest in Brittany before visiting the Pyrenees and then the Alps. The race consisted of seven mountain stages, two in the Pyrenees and five in the Alps. The highest point of elevation in the race was the Col du Galibier at 2,645 m (8,678 ft). In total there were five time trial events including the prologue.


1989 Tour de France, Route and stages
Pedro Delgado pointed to stage 17 up the Alpe d'Huez, one of the most prominent mountain-top finishes of the Tour, as the stage most likely to decide the outcome of the race. Unusually, the last of the time trials was held on the last stage of the race, finishing on the Champs-Élysées. This had been the idea of former race director Jean-François Naquet-Radiguet, who had taken over the position from Jacques Goddet and Félix Lévitan in May 1987.


1989 Tour de France, Route and stages
Naquet-Radiguet was unpopular in France and was replaced by Jean-Marie Leblanc before the 1989 route was announced, but the final-day time trial remained. It was the first time that the Tour ended with a time trial since 1968, when Jan Janssen overcame a 16-second deficit to Herman Van Springel to win the Tour by 38 seconds, the smallest margin up to 1989.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
The prologue time trial in Luxembourg City was won by Erik Breukink, with the second to fourth places taken by Laurent Fignon, Sean Kelly, and Greg LeMond, all six seconds slower. The dominant story of the day was Pedro Delgado. Having warmed up away from the crowd a few hundred yards from the start ramp, he missed his start time with his team unable to find him. He eventually left 2:40 minutes after his designated start, with what time he missed being added on. He eventually finished last on the stage, 2:54 minutes down on Breukink. Though he had conceded only a third of his winning margin from the previous year's Tour, and was therefore still not to be counted out, riders such as Fignon felt that "victory in the Tour was already a distant memory for him" at this stage.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
Delgado would lose even more time on the second day of the race. On the first stage, Acácio da Silva (Carrera Jeans–Vagabond) won from a breakaway group to become the first Portuguese rider to wear the yellow jersey. Delgado attacked from the peloton (the main field) on the final steep climb before the finish, but he was brought back into the field. In the team time trial in the afternoon, Delgado fell further back as he struggled to keep up and his Reynolds team finished last on the stage.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
He was still in last place on the general classification, almost ten minutes behind the yellow jersey. The race lead was retained by da Silva, but the victory went to Fignon's Super U team. Fignon was now in third place, having taken 51 seconds out of LeMond, whose ADR squad finished fifth.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
The third stage, finishing at the racing circuit of Spa-Francorchamps, was won by Raúl Alcalá (PDM–Concorde), who got the best of a five-man breakaway group up the climb to the line. Da Silva retained the jersey and would do so the next day as well. The fourth stage, which contained cobbled sections, was won by Jelle Nijdam (Superconfex–Yoko). He rode away from the peloton 1.5 km (0.93 mi) before the finish and held on with three seconds in hand at the line.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
– Sean Kelly commenting on Greg LeMond's victory on stage 5.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
In the stage 5 time trial, LeMond won both the time trial and the yellow jersey, taking the lead in the Tour by five seconds ahead of Fignon. Delgado placed second on the stage, 24 seconds behind, with Fignon in third a further 32 seconds behind. LeMond's victory was aided by the use of aerodynamic elbow-rest handlebars, formerly seen in triathlon events, which allowed him a more aerodynamic position on the bike.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
The 7-Eleven team had used them at the Tour de Trump earlier in the year and LeMond adopted their use for the two flat time trials in the Tour de France to great effect. Fignon and his team manager Cyrille Guimard felt that the tribars were not within the regulations, since they only allowed three support points for the rider on the bike. However, they did not issue a complaint, a fact lamented by Fignon in his 2010 autobiography. Delgado rode a strong time trial, supported by favourable weather conditions as he competed in the dry, while later starters had to get through the rain. Kelly meanwhile lost more than five minutes to LeMond, after having to throw up about 20 km (12 mi) into the stage.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
Stage 6, the longest of the race, proved unremarkable to the main classifications, but produced a human interest story: French domestique Joël Pelier (BH) had never been watched in his professional career by his mother, who was dedicated to caring for Pelier's severely disabled sibling. Unbeknownst to Pelier, his parents were waiting for him at the finish line, with his brother in a residential home for the week. Pelier, spurred on by his team manager, attacked with 180 km (110 mi) of the windy and wet stage remaining.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
He held an advantage of up to 25 minutes at one point, but suffered during the later part. Eventually, he won the stage one-and-a-half minutes ahead of the field and had a teary reunion with his parents. It was then the second-longest breakaway in Tour de France history after Albert Bourlon's in 1947, and has since been surpassed by Thierry Marie.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Early stages
The next two stages were relatively uneventful. Stage 7 was won by Etienne De Wilde (Histor–Sigma) from a group of four riders who were slightly clear of the field. The next day, a four-man breakaway stayed clear of the peloton, with Martin Earley (PDM–Concorde) taking victory. Fignon put in an attack during the stage, but was brought back.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Pyrenees
The race entered the high mountains for the first time on the next two stages, as the Tour visited the Pyrenees. On stage 9 from Pau to Cauterets, future five-time Tour winner Miguel Induráin (Reynolds) attacked on the bottom of the Col d'Aubisque and led the race for the rest of the day. He was followed by two riders of the BH team, Anselmo Fuerte and Javier Murguialday.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Pyrenees
At one point Induráin was more than six minutes ahead of the group containing the race favourites; he slowed during the final ascent at Cauterets, but held on to the stage win ahead of Fuerte by 27 seconds. Behind them, Mottet attacked from the peloton, with Delgado following and soon overtaking him. Delgado finished third on the stage and regained 27 seconds on Fignon and LeMond. It was on this stage that Fignon started to complain about LeMond riding too defensively for strategic reasons, accusing him of not putting any work into counterattacks.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Pyrenees
He later wrote in his autobiography: "All he did was sit tight and take advantage of the work I put in. To be honest, it was extremely frustrating." LeMond defended his tactics, claiming that as the leader it was not for him to push. Former race winner Stephen Roche hit his already injured knee on his handlebars on the descent of the Col de Marie-Blanque, reaching the finish under extreme pain many minutes behind the other favourites. He did not start the next stage.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Pyrenees
The second Pyrenean stage ended at the ski resort of Superbagnères. Robert Millar and Mottet attacked on the approach to the climb of the Col du Tourmalet. Behind them, Fignon suffered a weak moment on the climb and allegedly held on to a photographer riding on a motorcycle, without the race directors handing out any punishment for the offence. Delgado attacked towards the end of the climb and reached Millar and Mottet after the descent of the Tourmalet. Together, they reached Superbagnères, where Delgado was provoked by an over-enthusiastic spectator and threw a bidon at him.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Pyrenees
Delgado then moved clear but was recaptured by Millar, who took the stage victory. Mottet was third, 19 seconds down. Rooks and Gert-Jan Theunisse led the next group, containing Fignon, into the finish. Fignon attacked LeMond within the final kilometre of the stage, taking twelve seconds on the general classification and with it the yellow jersey. The order in the overall standings after these two mountain stages was Fignon ahead of LeMond by seven seconds, followed by Mottet a further 50 seconds behind. Delgado had moved up to fourth, now within three minutes of Fignon.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Transition stages
Stage 11 from Luchon to Blagnac had a flat profile. Rudy Dhaenens (PDM–Concorde) attacked from a six-man breakaway just as it was caught by the peloton. With just a couple of hundred metres left and the stage win almost certainly in his hands, Dhaenens misjudged his speed going through a corner and crashed, allowing the rest of the field to pass him. Mathieu Hermans won the stage for the Paternina team in a sprint finish. During the course of the stage, the only remaining Kelme riders abandoned, pre-race favourite Fabio Parra and José-Hipolito Roncancio.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Transition stages
Stage 12 was interrupted by an ecologists' protests against a new waste plant, which aided a breakaway by Valerio Tebaldi (Chateau d'Ax) and Giancarlo Perini (Carrera Jeans–Vagabond). A crash in the peloton, impacting about 30 riders, further hindered the field. Tebaldi won the two-man sprint to take the stage 21 minutes ahead of the main field, the second highest post-World War II margin between a stage winner and rest of the field behind only José Viejo's 22:50 minutes on stage 11 of the 1976 Tour de France.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Transition stages
By this point in the Tour half of LeMond's teammates were already out of the race and there would be four major mountain stages in the coming days. Of ADR's few remaining riders they were all around 100th place and Eddy Planckaert was probably his strongest remaining teammate, a sprinter who had won the green jersey the previous year. Planckaert would also eventually abandon in the final week.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Transition stages
Stage 13 was held on the Bastille Day bicentenary, the 200th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution and France's main national holiday. The PDM team, on the insistence of their team director, attacked in the feed zone of the stage, thereby violating the unwritten rules of the field. They were brought back, but the acceleration split the peloton into two parts. Fignon attacked from the first group with Mottet. Both stayed out ahead for about an hour before being recaptured. Then, two other riders broke free, Vincent Barteau (Super U–Raleigh–Fiat) and Jean-Claude Colotti.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Transition stages
Barteau left Colotti behind on the hills around the finishing city of Marseille and went on to win the stage. Delgado was handed a ten-second time penalty for illegally accepting food outside the feed zone, while pre-race favourite Breukink retired from the race about 30 km (19 mi) from the finish.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Transition stages
The next stage saw a repeat of Nijdam's stage 4 exploits: he again broke free of the field shortly before the finish line and held off his pursuers to take victory. The day's breakaway, which included Luis Herrera (Café de Colombia), a pre-race contender who had so far disappointed, was caught within the last 1.5 km (0.93 mi) of the stage.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
The following five stages took the riders through the Alps. The first of these, stage 15, was an individual time trial to the ski station at Orcières-Merlette. Induráin set an early standard with a time of 1:11:25 hours, only to be outdone six minutes later by Rooks, who improved on Induráin's time by 43 seconds. Theunisse was fastest up the second of the two climbs of the course, gathering more points in the mountains classification to move clear of rival Millar.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
Of the true contenders for the overall victory, Delgado set the fastest times at all the check points, but slowed on the last climb to eventually finish the stage fourth, 48 seconds down on Rooks. He attributed his time loss to a worsening callus that would influence him for the remainder of the race. Behind Rooks, Marino Lejarreta (Paternina) was second fastest, moving into the top five overall. LeMond meanwhile took back the yellow jersey from Fignon, finishing fifth on the stage, just nine seconds slower than Delgado. His advantage over Fignon at this stage was 40 seconds.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
The day after the second rest day, on the stage from Gap to Briançon, the riders faced the climbs of the Col de Vars and the Col d'Izoard. On the first of these climbs, Fignon and Mottet dropped back from the group of favourites, while LeMond stayed close to Delgado. Fignon and Mottet got back to the group on the descent, only for Delgado to attack on the climb of the Izoard. He was joined by LeMond, Theunisse and Mottet, while Fignon fell back once again.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
LeMond attacked after the descent, but on the slightly rising road towards the finish, Delgado made contact again to finish within the same time. Fignon meanwhile lost 13 seconds on LeMond. The two were now separated by 53 seconds in the general classification, the widest the margin would be the entire Tour. Up ahead, Pascal Richard (Helvetia–La Suisse) won the stage from a breakaway.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
Stage 17, which finished at Alpe d'Huez, one of the most famous climbs in cycling, was expected to be the decisive part of the race overall. Theunisse, wearing the polka-dot jersey as leader of the mountains classification, attacked on the first climb, the Col du Galibier. He was joined by two more riders, Franco Vona (Chateau d'Ax) and Laurent Biondi (Fagor–MBK) before the ascent of the Col de la Croix de Fer, but rode away from his breakaway companions before he reached the summit.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
At Le Bourg-d'Oisans, the village before the climb to Alpe d'Huez starts, he led the group of favourites by more than four minutes and held on to win the stage by over a minute. Behind him, the battle for the yellow jersey intensified. Fignon, LeMond and Delgado entered the climb together and Fignon instantly attacked at the first hairpin bend. LeMond stuck to his wheel, but Guimard, knowing LeMond well from their days together at the Renault team, saw that he was struggling.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
He drew his team car level with Fignon and ordered him to attack again with 4 km (2.5 mi) to go to the finish line. LeMond fell back and only Delgado was able to keep up with Fignon. The two reached the finish together, 1:19 minutes ahead of LeMond. Fignon thus regained the yellow jersey, with an advantage of 26 seconds over LeMond.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
The following stage to Villard-de-Lans featured a breakaway, including previous stage winners Millar and Richard. They were brought back once the race reached the Côte de Saint-Nizier climb, with only Herrera left ahead of the peloton. As the field made contact with Herrera, Fignon attacked. LeMond, Delgado and Theunisse followed him but unwillingness to work together allowed Fignon to extend his advantage. He passed the summit of the climb 15 seconds clear of his pursuers and in the valley behind, a group containing Alcalá and Kelly caught up to the three chasers.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
Fignon started the final 3 km (1.9 mi) climb up to the finish with a margin of 45 seconds. He took the stage win, but his advantage was reduced to 24 seconds by the time LeMond crossed the line, meaning that the difference between the two was now 50 seconds in the overall standings.


1989 Tour de France, Race overview, Alps
Stage 19 was the last one in the Alps and finished in Aix-les-Bains. Already by the second climb of the day, the Col de Porte, the top-four riders on the general classification, Fignon, LeMond, Delgado and Theunisse, joined by seventh-placed Lejarreta, had pulled clear. Behind, Mottet, sitting fifth overall, was struggling and would relinquish his position to Lejarreta by the end of the stage. On the race's last climb, the Col du Granier, LeMond attacked repeatedly, but Fignon followed him every time.