Champion: Bicycle Racing in the Age of Miguel Indurain

by Samuel Abt

Miguel Indurain Larraya is a retired Spanish road racing cyclist. Indurain won five consecutive Tours de France from 1991 to 1995, the fourth, and last, to win five times.

Genres: Cycling

159 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1993

About the author

Samuel Raphael Abt was an American sports journalist and author who covered professional cycling for 31 years, publishing articles in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune, among others. He devoted much time to chronicling the careers of English-speaking riders, especially Lance Armstrong and Greg LeMond.

Reviews

[Dann Zinke]

Dull. Each chapter is made up of sections, and each section reads like a reporting wire sent into a newspaper. The sections are poorly edited, so that sections often repeat information covered in previous ones (e.g. the book repeats three or four times that Bernard Hinault is a 5x TdF winner).
Unrelated to the writing style, it's also sad to read about the beginning of organized doping in pro cycling. While never called out, it's obviously suspicious that previously middling riders (Chiappucci, Bugno, Leblanc) are suddenly winning races while previous champions like Roche, Lemond, and Fignon were struggling. Average race speeds kept increasing. The role of the team doctor suddenly became more important. Etc.