The first American to win the Tour de France might have been a (former) kid named Brian Smith, instead of Greg LeMond, had things gone differently. After a year of racing with seniors as an intermediate, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while hitching and vanning across the country, placing in senior races that included national team members, Brian was not allowed to race as a senior in the new Vuelta de Bisbee stage race the next spring, because of a new USCF rule that forbade 1st and 2nd-year juniors from riding senior, allowing only 3rd-year juniors that option. He was so looking forward to riding against the phenomenal and already-famous Greg Lemond that he could taste it. Last I heard he had quit the sport and was living with a French girl and singing in a punk-rock band. Brian's contemporaries and buddies included a young Alexi Grewal, fwiw, and who knows what might have been. I think I know how the OP might feel.