Three Days in 1994: How awesome Miguel Indurain actually was

He had class. Cycling was a gentleman's sport back then, something which Lance Armstrong changed for good.

The 1994 Tour was decided in three stages that might have been the most dominant three-day stretch by any rider in cycling history.
Indurain produced three or four really brilliant time trialling performances over his reign at the Tour, but the one in 1994 may be the most impressive one of them all. In '92, he beat the second-placed rider, De Las Cuevas, by 3'00" at Luxembourg, his biggest margin of victory of all the time trials, but while there were some major names further down the list (Bugno at 3'41", Lemond at 4'04"), his competition in Bergerac for the 1994 Tour counted a much more complete rider on his best form (Tony Rominger, whom Indurain beat by 2'00"). Rominger's form for the '94 Tour can be discussed at length, but the fact remains that Rominger himself beat the next rider, De Las Cuevas, by 2'40" himself, leaving third-placed De Las Cuevas a whopping 4'40" behind Indurain. In one time trial! Chris Boardman, who later that year would win the Time Trial World Championship, finished fifth at 5'27". That's almost five and a half minutes, against a very motivated time trial specialist who a week earlier had shown he had great form.
Rominger began talking of a knee injury and bad health even before the time trial, but if your knees are not healthy, you don't beat Chris Boardman or the 1994 De Las Cuevas by that much. You just don't. So yes, I am calling 'bad excuse' on Rominger here. Just like with Lance Armstrong in the 2003 time trial, but that's another story.

The time gaps, even for a 64 km-time trial, are mind-boggling, and back then, a time trial that long was the norm in a Grand Tour, so they were hardly because of the monstrosity of the route. The Bergerac time trial in 1994 was probably Miguel Indurain's mega-apex as a time triallist. The Formula at its very best. As I said, whether to consider this time trial more impressive than his '92 thrashing of the field at Luxembourg depends on how you read Rominger's form, but aside from pointing to the time Rominger put into the following riders, I will actually contend that Rominger's poor form in the following mountain stages came from his defeat in the time trial.
Before the climb up to the Hautacam started two days later, Rominger knew he was up against a superior opponent. Indurains unexpected display of power up the Hautacam just showed everybody that this was an improved Indurain, not content to sit back and observe, but actually willing to launch pre-emptive strikes against his opponents. The next day, when Richard Virenque introduced himself to the world, Indurain laid down the law again, but in a more understated way, up to Luz Ardiden. He could once again control the pace of the lead group, and maintain initiative against a strong contingent of mountain specialists. This was Indurain the field general, and turned out to be the day he effectively eliminated Rominger, made sure Ugrumov would never be a serious threat, and kept Pantani within what was manageable, too.

Those three stages of the '94 Tour made Indurain's legacy as a champion. If he had continued his Formula from '92 and '93, he would rightfully have been considered a boring winner. The rest of the '94 Tour was boring, but that was because none of the contenders believed they could challenge Indurain. Rominger had never given up completely in '93, no matter his bad luck along the way, and Chiappucci never gave up, period. But mentally, Indurain had them all beaten after these three stages, and the Alpine stages of the '94 Tour reflected that. The latter part of the race still saw some great racing, but it was for second place, and everybody knew it.

They also changed the way Indurain went about his business the following year. Indurain's 1995 win has often been analyzed as 'more of the same', but in essence, that win was in no way dependent on time trial dominance. Bjarne Riis lost 1'00" to Indurain - over the combined two time trials of the race, but it was in the mountains that Indurain really crushed his opponents. Namely on the road to La Plagne, where Indurain might have produced his career-defining performance. He didn't win the stage, but notice how he just rides away from the others without actually attacking. It was no contest.
Indurain, after seeing in 1994 that he was able to do it, was simply more aggressive in '95. His surprise attack in Liège has been interpreted as fear of Rominger's and Berzin's time trialling abilities, but in the past Indurain still would have waited and let the others make the first move. Indurain's win in 1995 was never as much a sure thing as it had been in '94, especially with the ONCE team trying to out-maneuver him, but it was often more enjoyable to watch, because the competition depended more on wits than on power to compete with Miguel, which prompted some unusual reactions, too.

Indurain was also a legendary race manager, masterminding his successor Olano's World Championship in 1995, but I will maintain that he is actually underappreciated. And for those three days during the 1994 Tour, he would have been a match for any cyclist in history. Put him up against the 1997 Jan Ullrich, and Ullrich would have had trouble on the cold and foggy climb up to Hautacam. Put him up against the 2001 Lance Armstrong, and Lance would have been crushed like a bug on the time trial. Put him up against Eddy Merckx, and Eddy would have destroyed his own chances going forward by launching an ill-advised attack early on the Luz Ardiden stage to make up for the time he had lost in the time trial. Ultimately, anyone would have been powerless against the Indurain of those three stages, July 11th to July 15th, 1994.

Salad Days. The Battle Royale of the 1996 Tour de France

When you see the starting field of the 1996 Tour today, it is striking how good it was. I was never the biggest fan of Bjarne Riis, even though I am Danish, and I believe his relative collapse in the final time trial of '96 somewhat tainted his win (I'm not even going to go there on the PED issues!). He should have never allowed for discussions about whether or not Jan Ullrich could have beaten him in '96. Riis was the strongest man in this race which included some strange waiting days early on with horrible weather, strategic traps against race favorites, one very historic stage (at Les Arcs, where Indurain cracked), one greatly entertaining mountain sprint (at Sestrieres), and several dramatic events, with the overall result not being totally nailed down before the final time trial.

The thing that was remarkable about the 1996 Tour was actually the number of legendary riders starting in it. I have talked about the volatile nature of sprint earlier in this blog, so I'm not talking about them - but rather the stage race stars participating in this race. Of all riders who won Grand Tours from 1991 through 2001, only three (2000 Giro winner Stefano Garzelli and 1991 Giro winner Franco Chioccoli, as well as '98 Tour and Giro victor Pantani) did not start the '96 Tour. I will admit that this is at least in part due to multiple winners of both the Tour and the Vuelta - and the fact that Lance Armstrong back then did not play a lead role in the Tour - but the peloton of the '96 Tour was impressive. If the injured Pantani had indeed been in this peloton, only three podium-finishers from all Tours from '91 through 2001 were not at the start in s'Hertoogenbosch, Holland (the at this point semi-retired Gianni Bugno, Zenon Jaskula, who was riding for the lower ranked AKI team in '96, and Joseba Beloki, who had yet to turn pro).
Case and point - one of the interesting things to watch again from this Tour was actually the prologue. Notice how 8 of the top 9 riders of this prologue won at least one Grand Tour during their careers. And the ninth rider (second-placed Chris Boardman) was a prologue specialist, who set multiple Hour Records and was a time-trial World Champion! That's not even counting 12th-placed Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich, who rolled his way into 37th, clearly not yet knowning what kind of rider he was. To be fair, no one probably knew at the time what kind of riders Ullrich and Armstrong would become.

The 1996 Tour was actually a bizarre experience. For the first week, everyone thought this was another case of Miguel Indurain having it all under control. It certainly looked like it, and after his incredible display of power in 1995, who would imagine that Indurain could be beat? And who would imagine that the awesome ONCE squad had any real weaknesses when the Tour would begin?
So the first week was waiting. As I remember it, it would be rather frustrating from time to time, not least when the peloton decided to pull an impromptu strike at 28 km/h in rainy and windy conditions. And the strong field would fade over the course of the race, to the point where Bjarne Riis, asked after his strong win at Hautacam who would be his hardest competition, answered 'I don't know. Maybe Olano'. He was wrong, of course, as Jan Ullrich almost made it exciting with an Indurain-esque performance in the Saint-Emilion time trial.
But that fall-off of the competitors was not really Riis' fault - of course you can even say it was to his credit. Indurain suffered a very sudden fall from Les Arcs on, and he had few strong moments in the entire race, but he also suffered from Riis' very intelligent race management through his Telekom troops. Rominger was getting on, actually doing his last good season as a rider, and his less than stellar riding might have held back Olano in some phases of the race. But Olano was never that good anyway, although this particular Tour might have been the strongest we ever saw him. No matter how this Tour wound up unfolding in the mountains, there is no denying the strong field of pretenders to the crown, also including mountain specialists Virenque, Leblanc, Dufaux and one-year wonder Luttenberger. It was just a more interesting bunch to watch than today's protagonists, Wiggins, Schleck and Contador.

On the whole, the Tour of 1996 was an exciting experience, where the weather unfortunately wound up adding at least one dimension to the drama. But the fact remains that after the Alps, even though Bjarne Riis looked very strong, no one knew for sure yet who would be the boss of the race (I'm sure Rominger still thought he could be), nor who would challenge Riis (after the Alps, Berzin was still in the picture, though he would fade badly in the Pyrenees). And to me, this particular edition of the race, though neither the most historic one in terms of its winner nor the performances it saw, remains the Battle Royale that defined cycling's apex in the mid-90's.