Miguel Indurain of Spain was one of the greatest time-triallists there’s ever been. He could do everything else too, which is why he was the first to win five consecutive Tours. But the time trial was his art form, and his masterpiece was stage 9 of the 1992 Tour de France.
It was 65 kilometres long and undulated up, down and around the hills surrounding Luxembourg city. Indurain’s time was an incredible 1 hour 19 minutes, 3 minutes ahead of 2nd place Armand de-Las Cuevas of France and nearly 4 ahead of the Italian road race world champion, Gianni Bugno.
‘Indurain the Rocket’ L’Equipe’s headline declared the next day. And Indurain had tracked around the principality’s hilly roads like a guided missile, blowing the race apart and closing right down on the yellow jersey.
Allan Peiper, the Australian pioneer we featured recently, rode that time trial and remembers; “I was struggling and was quite afraid of the time trial. It was a long way, and the possibility of elimination was real. I warmed up, psyched myself with what was left of my morale and raced every one of those 65 kilometres as hard as I could, but I was still 19 minutes behind Indurain.”
Peiper wasn’t the only one devastated by the Spaniard’s performance. Gianni Bugno virtually threw in the towel, resigning himself to a podium place. In fact, the only rider who didn’t give up was Bugno’s compatriot, Claudio Chiappucci.
He attacked Indurain and tried to defeat him, and on one brave day in the Alps he went from the gun in the hope he could break him. It was stage 13 to Sestriere, and the feisty Italian led alone over the Col des Saisies, Cormet de Roselend, Iseran and Mont Cenis before winning the stage.
It was to no avail, Indurain kept Chiappucci on a tight leash and in the end all that effort gained just 1 minute 45 seconds. To add insult to injury the Spaniard took the yellow jersey that day and kept it to Paris.
Indurain won by 4 minutes 35 seconds from Chiappucci, with Bugno 3rd. He scored a Giro–Tour double that year too, the first of two back-to-back. Never distanced by much in the mountains and massive in a time trial; that was Miguel Indurain.
