CONTENTS

FOREWORD by Sean Kelly xi

BOTTLES FOR NEKANE 1

FROM ELDA TO VAL-LOURON 49

THOSE GLORIOUSLY IMPROBABLE YEARS 77

NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN 183

MIGUEL INDURÁIN’S PALMARES 231

(compiled by Richard Allchin)
Picture reproduced by kind permission of Jeremy Mallard,
from his limited-edition print ‘Riding into History’.
 In his gentle way Miguel always rejects anything that could
be seen as presumption on his part. One day I put it to him: ‘You
know the descent from the Tourmalet as well as anyone does.’ I was
convinced that he did – both via La Mongie and the road to Bareges,
and via Luz-Saint Saveur, which is perhaps the rockier, wilder and
more inhumane side. That was where he hunted down Rominger in
1993. But Miguel denied this at first. Later he accepted that, yes, it
was a dangerous descent that he did know well, and one on which
he was forced to brake on ‘three or four bends’. So, not on the others,
then?
‘You’re always gambling when you’re descending!’ he told me,
‘and it’s better not to see what’s on either side, those sheer drops
and the like, because otherwise you’d probably stop the bike there
and then.’
That was a modest way of expressing his Theory of the Descent, on
the greatest of the Pyrenean giants. Touch the brakes on four bends.
Don’t look. It sounded almost like an excuse for having clinched
the ‘91 Tour in such rampant style, when he launched himself down
towards La Mongie, or for having caught Rominger on the road
to Barèges in the ’93 Tour. And this, coming from the rider who is
remembered for the most spectacular descents (perhaps the most
effective, rather than necessarily the fastest descents) in the history
of cycling.
The decade up to the summer of 1991 had seen a dramatic shift
in Spanish cycling. At the outset there hadn’t been a single rider
capable of making a showing in the big foreign competitions; by
the end of the decade the Reynolds team had burst on to the scene,

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shaken up the peloton and raised everybody’s expectations. That
was the heyday of Pedro Delgado and Arroyo, and the performances
of Marino Lejarreta and Chozas in the Giro. Riders like Pello Ruiz
Cabestany and Julián Gorospe even won stages in the Tour de
France. Those were ‘magical moments’ in the lives of thousands of
Spaniards. It was something akin to a mass phenomenon – whole
families glued to the TV waiting for French television’s broadcast to
Spain. The hysteria, which was heightened in no short measure by
the media and the charisma of the leading figure, Pedro Delgado,
had three phases. The first was the 1987 Tour, which Pedro almost
won, but then lost by a few seconds in the individual time-trial at
Dijon. Second, there was the ’88 Tour which he did win, and this was
even more highly valued because, halfway through, the issue of the
alleged doping scandal reared its ugly head. With Delgado already
in yellow, one of the Tour organisers’ vehicles drew up alongside the
Reynolds car to ‘suggest’ to the team bosses that Pedro should feign
a fall and that they should claim he was injured, or ill. They wanted
him to retire with his ‘dignity’ intact. Not on your life, not with the
pain it takes to win a Tour! It was all or nothing, and it was all.
The third phase was the following Tour, in ’89, which went from
the ridiculous to the sublime: it began as a disaster and ended as one
of the epics. It was the Tour when Delgado took a wrong turning going
to the start in Luxembourg and was last on overall classification at
the end of the first stage; and on the Champs Elysées he was on the
podium in third place. The French Press didn’t give due credit at the
time for the historic way Delgado had battled up the classification
because, naturally, they were more focused on the fierce, private
duel between Fignon (a Frenchman who was never loved by the
French) and Lemond, an American who seemed to be half-French
and about whom France was divided. On the one hand Lemond
had demonstrated his undeniable qualities as a champion, since he
was the man who had ’granted’ the almighty Bernard Hinault one
final Tour; on the other hand he was to be his executioner shortly
afterwards, depriving him of his sixth Tour.
So for Hinault, too, the limit of five Tours seemed to be sacred.
Exceeding it was like entering an unknown world: it wasn’t simply
a question of fame, but of whether it was really proper to win more
Tours than Eddy Merckx. And yet Hinault gave his all to win a
sixth Tour, launching attacks in the face of team orders, which made
manager Paul Koech1i increasingly neurotic with each passing
day. Hinault was failing when least expected and winning where it

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didn’t seem possible. The climb at Alpe d’Huez in tandem with his
junior partner, Greg Lemond, his team-mate in La Vie Claire and
the race leader, was memorable. Their arrival together at the finish,
shaking each other’s hands (Hinault won, of course) was merely a
deceitful lid on the tensions that were boiling over within the team,
where some riders supported Lemond and others Hinault. That, too,
has passed into history. It was in ’86, and soon afterwards Perico
Delgado’s time would come.
Then, in 1990, the Tour ran an equally strange course for Banesto:
again it was a matter of the team hierarchy. Some said: ‘Of course it
should be Perico; he’s still got what it takes to make an impression
in such a demanding event as the Tour.’ At that time Delgado was
one of the most experienced riders in the French Tour. But other
voices spoke of the need for the leadership to pass to Induráin,
even though he, himself, frowned whenever the issue was raised. A
third approach, which, as things turned out, was the most practical
and sensible, proposed that the race itself should decide. It should
be emphasised how well the Banesto management dealt with this
delicate issue. Nevertheless, while letting the race decide was all well
and good, it should still be remembered that in the previous Tour of
’89 Delgado, despite his spectacular and commendable recovery – ‘a
real bullfighters performance’, as the French said – had not gained
a single stage victory. Miguel, on the other hand, had won in one
of the blue ribbon stages of the race, at Cauterets, even though the
public impact of that feat was partially eclipsed by Perico’s incessant
and astonishing recovery – the seconds and minutes he was clawing
back, day in day out, like some workaholic ant.
In the end it was the 1990 Tour that settled matters once and for
all. Miguel was always ahead. He was constantly at the front on the
big climbs in the Alps and in the Pyrenees, and always having to
wait for Delgado to catch up. That is, until that one unforgettable day
when Miguel had had enough, and shot off like an arrow on Luz-
Ardiden, and on to victory. In the time-trials as well, his progress was
spectacular: he was now on a par with the very best. It could be said
that, given this overall picture, the prospects for the ’91 Tour should
have been crystal clear. But they weren’t. There were still people
who continued to believe that Perico was capable of sweeping all
before him once more, as he had in ’88, and, secondly, and even more
surprising, there were those who maintained that Induráin definitely
couldn’t ‘climb’. His two Paris–Nice wins, clinched on Mont-Faron
and the Col d’Eze, counted for nothing, apparently; nor did his San

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Sebastian classic sealed on Jaizkibel. Cauterets and Luz-Ardiden,
they, too, counted for nought. Generally speaking, people in Spain
continued to place their faith in Delgado’s lightning ability to break,
We had still not grasped that the Tour, to quote the author Lapeyrére
in a thought-provoking book entitled Comme faire le Tour, far from
being a simple test of speed, is, in fact, a test of character and style.
And that’s where they would be up against Miguel. Delgado was a
great watcher, but Miguel was even greater. His vision on the road
might be described as ‘multiple’. He had that exceptional quality
which insects possess to ‘see’ images fragmented through a series
of compound eyes. Each rival, each movement, everything was
computed and registered. And all this information would end up
being used at the least expected moment.
In 1991 we were about to enter the Kingdom of the Sun, and there
was certainly a lot of sun in those Tours, that’s for sure, even though
there were bad days in all of them. We were getting to the most
fantastic and unforgettable part of the Symphony which Induráin
was offering us, up now on his conductor’s dais. Earlier I said that
Hinault gave his all to achieve a sixth Tour win, but failed. So did
Merckx, who was broken as he attacked like a wounded animal
on Pra-Loup and the Col d’ Alios, and was finally superceded by
someone younger, a new rider named Bernard Thevenet, who
managed to rid himself of the ‘Merckx complex’ that was ruling the
peloton at that time. Eddy Merckx’s last victory was in ’74, but his
increasingly laborious attempts continued right up to ’77. It was a
similar story with Jacques Anquetil, whose last Tour triumph was
in ’64, but who was still there in ’66 and even the following year
was still the leader of the BIC team, which contained a very young
Jean-Marie Leblanc (later to become the Tour boss) and José Miguel
Echávarri.
Hinault, though, was unconcerned about revealing his deficiencies
on the road. He had the good fortune still to have the class to register
the odd win and, like Merckx, he was able to do this at the age of 32.
He retired rather discreetly. Induráin was to be the most decisive of
all in that respect. After his incredible five-year run, and despite it
being commonly accepted that physically he was still fit enough to
attempt a sixth Tour, he said ‘adiós’. A gentleman until the very end.
This served merely to add to his legend. …

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