Indurain's cycling career was also based on exceptional physical values. His height of 1.86 m and his racing weight of 76 kg earned him the nickname Big Mig , but led to good leverage and power values. Indurain's lung capacity was eight liters, three liters more than the human average. The record for the lowest resting heart rate ever measured in a healthy person is held by Indurain with 28 heartbeats per minute.
After Indurain in his first year in the adult area in 1983 as a 18-year-old amateur road champion had become and in the 1984 Summer Olympics on individual road race had participated, in 1985 he was pro when cycling team Reynolds (from 1990 under the name Banesto ), in which he held until the end of his Career 1996 stayed. His team boss José Miguel Echavarri García was also considered to be his discoverer and patron. As an amateur, he also competed in the International Peace Race in 1984 , but drove there unobtrusively and finished 70th overall.
From 1991 Indurain was the sole captain of his team and won the Tour de France five times in a row from 1991 to 1995; This made him the fourth driver to win five times and the first to do so without a break. In 1992 and 1993, Indurain also won the Giro d'Italia . In addition to these victories, there were several victories in shorter tours , including two more times the Tour of Catalonia and twice the Dauphiné Libéré . On September 2, 1994, Indurain set a new hour record of 53.040 kilometers , which was broken a few weeks later by Tony Rominger . At the 1995 World Championships , Indurain won the individual time trial and came second in the road race behind his compatriot Abraham Olano .
His attempt to win his sixth consecutive victory at the Tour de France in 1996 failed. When the Dane Bjarne Riis won , Indurain was only eleventh in the overall standings. He lost eight minutes on the last mountain stage leading through his birthplace. At the subsequent Olympic Games in Atlanta , he won the gold medal in the individual time trial. He started at the Vuelta a España in 1996 , but gave up the race and ended his career.
Indurain has not been sued for doping during his career . Although he tested positive for salbutamol at the Tour de L'Oise in 1994 , the IOC and the UCI allowed this substance, which is banned in France, for use as an asthma spray . Indurain was exonerated on the basis of a corresponding certificate. In 2013, contacts with the controversial physician Francesco Conconi became known. Conconi has been shown to administer EPO to various racing cyclists between 1992 and 1995 .
Honors and functions
In 1992, Miguel Indurain received the Prince of Asturias Prize and was awarded the Olympic Order after his fifth victory in the Tour de France in Lausanne . In 1992 and 1993 he received the Vélo d'Or , with which the best cyclist of a season is to be honored. In the same years, the Italian sports magazine La Gazzetta dello Sport voted him World Sportsman of the Year .
Indurain is a member of the Spanish Olympic Committee and has been appointed to the UCI Committee for Professional Cycling. He is honorary chairman of the Miguel Induráin Foundation .