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indurain: relentless. alasdair fotheringham. ebury press paperback. 314pp illus. £14.99

indurain relentless - alasdair fotheringham

in 1981, pop singer and drummer, phil collins released his first solo album entitled face value and from that album came the particularly successful single in the air tonight. when the single was originally released, the first two minutes or so featured only collins singing over some doom-laden chords and a rhythm provided by a drum machine. however, on hearing the song for the first time, atlantic records' ahmet ertegun strongly suggested that collins add a drum rhythm on the basis that there was no backbeat and that would limit its potential success on radio and in the dance clubs.

of course, we all know now that after those two minutes that drum break wakes up any who may have been subdued by the record's subtle beginnings. though it would be unfair to apportion the record's success entirely to the colossal drum break, there's no doubt it played a significant part in it selling more than half a million copies and receiving a gold record.

that drum break did pretty much the same to pop music as did spain's miguel indurain in the 1990s. the five time tour winner and twice victor in the giro-tour double, at 6ft 2" and 80kg, dominated the grand tours by means of a power that few could keep at bay, particularly in the time-trials. however, the power that such a large rider could produce allowed him also to contain breakways in the mountains by those a tad more fleet of foot than the navarran.

alasdair fotheringham is well acquainted with spain and with the careers of the country's more prominent cyclists, having written tomes on both luis ocana and federico bahamontes. relentless proves to be a remarkably comprehensive biography of one of spain's most recent champions, all the more so, as it seems fotheringham has done so without actually speaking to big mig, at least not specifically for this book.

indurain's ascent to becoming one of the sport's most successful riders while apparently remaining a thoroughly nice fellow, coincided at least partially with my own gathering interest in cycle racing, so many of the early pages in fotheringham's writings are all new to me. and bearing in mind indurain's apparent desire to remain as private a person as his career would allow, that's probably every bit as true for many other readers. yet his early domination of teenage racing was bound to raise at least a modicum of interest.

"The habit of winning without overly celebrating meant that Indurain gave the impression that success was something that came naturally, rather than anything special. That slightly mechanical edge towards beating others in races was something his rivals would find intimidating..."

it is an often uncomfortable fact that the competitive nature demonstrated by many, if not all of the worlds top sports people, is but a thin layer separating decency from arrogance or an otherwise unpleasant disposition. were that not the case, such common lore would foretell, they would be bereft of the killer instinct that made them champions in the first place. indurain seems to have been on holiday when such personality traits were being handed out.

"Juan Carlos Gonzalez Salvador believes Indurain's quietness is hereditary. 'His father was very similar, very friendly and somebody you'd get to like very quickly [...] Miguel's the same..."

the downside to this conservative approach to bike racing, allied to his being probably the last rider you'd go to for a soundbite, is played out across the book's 314 pages. though possessed of a comprehensive index relating to a wealth of facts spread throughout each chapter, indurain's career comes across as almost inevitable. it has been oft said that indurain's five successive tour victories, joined in '92 and '93 by two maglia rosas, epitomised some of the least interesting racing seen over those three weeks in july. not for nothing did his team-mates refer to him as robocop, probably engendered by the visored helmet worn during his time-trial obliterations.

nonetheless, fotheringham has succeeded in authoring an intriguing biography, in the sense that his writing at no time emulates his subject's uniformity. there is much in the way of comment from those surrounding the big man; jose miguel echavarri, eusebio unzue, and brother prudencio indurain, all of whom paint a picture of the great man that equates almost exactly with the common perception. he was undoubtedly fair in competition, often gifting stage wins while maintaining focus on the bigger picture, a feature that won him many friends in the peloton.

"...Indurain was genuinely liked by his colleagues, rivals or not:..."

if the early to mid-nineties are a period of cycle racing missing from your own palmares, this book is an essential coursework. for indurain aficionados it must be considered essential being one of the few to discuss his career in such great detail. but it also succeeds on the level of being an accurate snapshot of a revered era in cycling history.

thursday 25 may 2017

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................