Miguel Indurain needs no introduction. Five-time champion of the Tour de France, double winner of the Giro d’Italia, world and Olympic champion against the clock… an immense list of victories, and it could have been more, because he was always a runner he gave up several races, thinking about bigger prizes .
The Spaniard, in an interview with the newspaper AS, revealed what he thinks about current cycling, cycling taken seriously from a very early age and of course the Jonas Vinegaard/Tadej Pogacar duel in the next Tour de France.
Cycling nowadays
Indurain, 59 years old, began by describing how he sees cycling today, compared to his time. “They are very explosive. Then there are not as many time trials as there were in my time, which is what I liked.”
“What the organization wants is for everything to reach the last day without deciding, and in this aspect they play a little with the way of making the routes”.
What do you think of the Pogacar-Vingegaard duel?
There are more people. Of course they have dominated in recent years and have very powerful teams, but there is always one more runner that is there. Every year is completely different. Furthermore, Pogacar will do the Giro and the Tour, which is a difficult challenge, he will have to manage it.
Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year
Miguel Indurain won the Giro d’Italia in the same year, in two consecutive years (1992 and 1993) and was asked about his preparation for the successful attempt. “The issue is that nowadays everything is played from January to October.”
“For a challenge like this, you have to forget things along the way. During my time, I left aside the classics and other things I wanted to do, to make such an important effort. I also imagine that the way of planning the season will be different from my time.
Early retirement from cycling
“There is a lot of stress these days, which is why many cyclists give up. For example, I really liked Tom Dumoulin, and due to the stress, the overload… he left.”
“There is a lot of pressure on the athlete and not just in cycling. He’s into sports in general. Tennis, basketball, football… they start very young, because they have all the data.”
“Peter Sagan is another one who recently gave up and had been winning since he was very young. If you start earning too soon, you could burn out. There are cases and more cases, but doing 10-15 years at a high level is enough”, concludes the five-time Tour de France champion.