How could it come to this? Miguel Indurain's fall from grace

http://ift.tt/2t7dBws

The following is an extract from 'Indurain' by Alasdair Fotheringham (Ebury Press, £14.99)

Back in the day, there used to be an urban legend amongst cycling fans that whoever led the Vuelta a España at the summit of the Lagos de Covadonga climb, deep in the mountains of Asturias, would be declared the outright winner when the race ended in Madrid. But on 20 September 1996, even before stage thirteen of the Vuelta had begun to climb the nineteen-kilometre ascent to Covadonga, it felt as if cycling had lost one of its most crucial battles.

The event that cast an enormous pall over what was in theory the Queen stage of the 1996 Vuelta – and in fact was to cast a shadow over the entire race – unfolded on the difficult ascent of the Fito, the first major climb of the day. A single attack by Tony Rominger, one of the 1990s’ most talented Grand Tour racers, began to split the peloton into pieces.

ADVERTISEMENT

In what was essentially a skirmish before the big battle on the slopes of Covadonga itself, the flurry of controlling moves and accelerations that Rominger’s attack produced had a single, devastating consequence: Miguel Indurain, five times winner of the Tour de France and arguably Spain’s greatest ever athlete, was dropped.

He was not sweating unduly or swaying over the road as the single line of riders in the peloton drew away from him further up the climb. Indurain had simply run out of energy and rather than go so deep to try to keep up that he then cracked afterwards, he was taking the coldly logical path: eking out whatever scant strength he had left to minimise the damage and limit the gaps.

This, then, was no death-or-glory defeat. Utterly characteristic of his dislike of any kind of histrionic behaviour on or off the bike, Indurain was quietly laying down his arms. Racing in such an economical style was a simple recognition of a simple fact: despite not being ill or injured, his physical condition was such he had lost all chance of winning the Vuelta, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

You can read more at Cyclingnews.com

via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://ift.tt/2tGqDy3