48 Facts About Miguel Indurain

Miguel Indurain Larraya is a retired Spanish road racing cyclist.

Miguel Indurain won five Tours de France from 1991 to 1995, the fourth, and last, to win five times, and the only five-time winner to achieve those victories consecutively.

Miguel Indurain won the Giro d'Italia twice, becoming one of seven people to achieve the Giro-Tour double in the same season.

Miguel Indurain wore the race leader's yellow jersey in the Tour de France for 60 days.

Miguel Indurain is the most recent cyclist, and one of the very few cyclists, to have come close to cycling's 'Triple Crown' when in 1993, after having already won the Giro and the Tour, he finished just 0:19 behind in the World Championship.

Related searches

Miguel Indurain was the youngest rider ever to win the Spanish amateur national road championship, when he was 18, at 20 the youngest rider to lead the Vuelta a Espana, and at 20 he won a stage of the Tour de l'Avenir.

Miguel Indurain was born in the village of Villava, which is an outlying area of Pamplona.

Miguel Indurain's first bicycle was a green secondhand Olmo given to him for his 10th birthday.

Miguel Indurain tried running, basketball, javelin and football from nine to 14.

Miguel Indurain won his second race and competed every week thereafter.

Miguel Indurain won his first professional race a week later, a time trial in the Tour de l'Avenir.

Miguel Indurain rode the Tour de France later that year, as he would do in each of the next 11 years, but dropped out in the fourth stage.

In 1986, Miguel Indurain again rode the Tour, dropping out on the 12th stage.

Miguel Indurain started the 1987 Vuelta a Espana with bronchitis from the Tour of Belgium.

Miguel Indurain rode the 1988 Tour de France as teammate of the winner Pedro Delgado.

Miguel Indurain won the stage and became leader of the mountains classification, wearing the polkadot jersey the next stage, the only time in his career.

In 1990, Miguel Indurain rode the Tour de France again for Delgado, but Delgado could not win.

Miguel Indurain finished 10th place, sacrificing several places by waiting for Delgado.

Miguel Indurain was a strong time trialist, gaining on rivals and riding defensively in the climbing stages.

Miguel Indurain won only two Tour stages that were not individual time trials: mountain stages to Cauterets and Luz Ardiden in the Pyrenees.

In 1991, Greg LeMond was favourite for the Tour and while Miguel Indurain was a fine time trialist he was considered too large to be a good climber.

LeMond led the race until the 12th stage but on the 13th he broke down on the Tourmalet, and lost more than seven minutes to Miguel Indurain, who became the leader and stayed leader to the end.

Miguel Indurain won the prologue at San Sebastian and seized the yellow jersey, only to lose it the next day.

Miguel Indurain seemed to crack on the final climb to Sestriere being passed by Franco Vona but managed to finish third, enough to claim the yellow jersey once more.

Ollivier said Miguel Indurain's ride wasn't without effort but another historian, Pierre Chany, said it lacked audacity and that Miguel Indurain never "did anything unprovoked which would have allowed this exceptional rider to rise above the rest and excite the crowd".

Related searches

Miguel Indurain again won the first time trial, the ninth stage from Perigueux to Bergerac, in the southwest.

Miguel Indurain lost the stage to Leblanc but kept the yellow jersey to the end.

Miguel Indurain entered the Giro again, but this time was beaten by Evgeni Berzin and Marco Pantani, who had prepared solely for the Giro.

In May 1994, Miguel Indurain tested positive for salbutamol following the Tour de L'Oise in France.

Miguel Indurain attacked with Johan Bruyneel following and the rest were left 50 seconds behind.

The following day Miguel Indurain won the first time trial, organised on a demanding circuit at Seraing.

Miguel Indurain aimed for a sixth victory in the 1996 Tour, but suffered from the beginning.

Miguel Indurain said the 20 seconds were nothing compared to the minute he would have lost had he not taken the bottle.

Miguel Indurain finished 11th and, in a stage passing through his hometown and ending in Pamplona, he finished 19th, eight minutes behind the stage winner.

Miguel Indurain won the individual time trial in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, where professionals competed for the first time.

Miguel Indurain won the title ahead of compatriot Abraham Olano and Boardman.

In September 1996, Miguel Indurain rode the Vuelta a Espana at the insistence of his team.

Relations with his team manager, Jose Miguel Indurain Echavarri, had been difficult since an aborted attempt on the hour record in Colombia in October 1995.

Miguel Indurain took two months to consider his future, particularly the €4.

Miguel Indurain founded the Miguel Indurain Foundation in 1998 to promote sport in his home region of Navarra.

Miguel Indurain worked with the Spanish Olympic Committee to promote Sevilla's candidature for the 2004 Olympics, and the Union Cycliste Internationale.

Miguel Indurain continues to ride a bike three or four times a week.

Former Festina coach Antonie Vayer has cast doubt on Miguel Indurain's abilities, claiming only "mutants" could have performed at the level he did.

Miguel Indurain resisted comparison to Tour champions of the past and said he "never felt superior to anyone".

Miguel Indurain "never had airs about himself and only reluctantly stepped into the limelight that came with the maillot jaune [yellow jersey]", Andy Hood wrote in Procycling.

Related searches

Miguel Indurain looks as relaxed off the bike as he does when he is on it, but you are aware that you are in the presence of a great bike rider.

Miguel Indurain said the man who most impressed him was Pope John Paul II, to whom he gave a yellow jersey from the Tour de France and a pink jersey from the Giro d'Italia.

Miguel Indurain is a member of the Laureus World Sports Academy.