HOW BANESTO CAME TO RULE THE TOUR DE FRANCE
No22: Banesto. Despite a chaotic start to life, Spanish squad Banesto grew into one of the most successful Grand Tour teams of its era
The 1989 Tour de France started with a 7.8km prologue in Luxembourg, and last to roll down the start ramp was the defending Tour champion, Pedro Delgado. The Spaniard was entering the race in terrific form having won the Vuelta for his Reynolds team just six weeks previously, but as his Tour start time approached he was nowhere to be seen.
With baffled race officials looking on and confusion sweeping those watching around the world, the clock started counting time with the Spaniard still missing. Eventually a harassed-looking Delgado fought his way through the throng, through the start house and quickly rolled down the ramp, more than two and a half minutes late. Unsurprisingly he finished dead last, 2min 54sec behind stage winner Erik Breukink, in the knowledge he would have been comfortably in the top 20 had he started on time.
It was an embarrassing episode made worse by the fact that some important executives were watching with interest in Luxembourg. The Reynolds team had started life as a professional outfit in 1980, sponsored by the Spanish Aluminium processing company Industria Navarra del Aluminio, SA (INASA); the US firm Reynolds International had an interest in the company, hence the team name. The initial investment was reportedly 15 million pesetas but by mid-1989 the team had grown beyond all recognition, and now required a budget of some 300 million pesetas. Such funding was beyond INASA’S means and, with the Tour around the corner, a co-sponsor was needed, and quickly. Step forward Spanish bank Banesto. After some rapid negotiations, in mid-june Banesto pumped 100 million pesetas into the team, which became Reynolds-banesto. A fortnight later Banesto executives had assembled in Luxembourg, excited to watch the star rider of their new team start his defence of cycling’s most important race.
Safe to say they probably didn’t expect the chaos that unfolded. And things would get worse before they got better.
Delgado couldn’t sleep that night and suffered terribly during the next day’s team time-trial, losing yet more time. Remarkably, despite losing more than seven minutes in two days to Greg Lemond and Laurent Fignon, the riders who would finish first and second respectively in Paris, Delgado battled back and finished the race third overall, 3min 34sec down.
Tour de France dominance
Banesto took over title sponsorship of the team the following year with the man who would lead the team for the next six years already on the roster. Miguel Indurain had signed for Reynolds in 1984 and spent his early years working for Delgado while picking up the odd win here and there. In 1989, however, he transformed into a toplevel stage-race contender, winning ParisNice and the Criterium International, as well as taking his first Tour stage win in the Pyrenees.
Two years later Indurain claimed the first of an eventual five successive Tour titles for
Miguel Indurain had signed in 1984 and spent his early years working for Delgado while picking up the odd win here and there
Banesto. He took yellow for the first time after a 232km stage up to Val Louron that also took in climbs of the Pourtalet, Aubisque, Tourmalet and Aspin. He had been more than four minutes behind Luc Leblanc at the start of the day and more than two minutes behind defending champion Lemond but, after countering Lemond’s initial attack at the foot of the Tourmalet, Indurain moved away towards the top of the climb.
On the Aspin he waited for the chasing Claudio Chiappucci to get across and then worked with him to build their lead. Up the Aspin, down the Aspin, along the valley and up to Val Louron they rode together. Behind, Lemond was labouring, hitting the deck after having his rear wheel clipped by a rival team’s car. The American lost more than seven minutes as Chiappucci took the stage and Indurain the race lead. The Spaniard defended his jersey through the Alps and then won the final 57km time-trial to claim his first Tour and start the Indurain era.
Five in a row
From 1991 until 1995 the Spaniard ruled the race for Banesto. Today he is the only rider with five Tour wins in succession in the record books. It was a remarkable period of dominance but the perceived manner of his victories – always controlled, never with panache – gave rise to grudging respect rather than adulation.
His tactics could be summarised thus: win the time-trials, don’t lose time in the mountains, win the Tour. It was too methodical an approach for some and his exploits were not universally lauded. He was considered the antithesis of champions such as Coppi, Bobet and Merckx, riders from a more romantic age predicatably remembered through rose-tinted glasses. With the addition of two Giro titles (1992/1993) he is the only rider to have achieved the fabled Giro/tour double two years in a row.
Indurain finished his career with Banesto having also claimed the Hour record in 1994, the Time-trial World Championships in 1995 and Olympic Gold in the time-trial in 1996. He retired at the end of 1996.
Leadership of the team passed to the likes of Abraham Olano, who won the Vuelta in 1998, and Alex Zülle, who won four stages at the 1999 Tour en route to finishing second to Lance Armstrong in Paris. Other notable moments for the team include Jose María Jiménez’s win on the Angliru during the 1999 Vuelta, the first time the race had visited what is now the Spanish tour’s most feared climb. When Jiménez died in 2003 at the age of just 32, the Spanish daily ABC headlined its tribute: ‘The first man on the moon (that is to say the Angliru).’
The bank continued sponsorship until the end of 2003 (from 2001 it assumed the name ibanesto.com), the team’s final victory coming at the famous Escalada a Montjuïc in Barcelona, courtesy of Iván Gutiérrez who won both of the race’s stages and the overall.
‘When Banesto decided to leave, we had many problems finding a successor,’ team manager Eusebio Unzué told El Confidencial in 2014. ‘Luckily Illes Balears was born and we could continue,’ he said, referencing the backing he eventually secured from the Balearic Government for 2004. The team continues to this day, currently racing under the Movistar name.
This jersey is part of Paul Van Bommel’s collection of memorabilia, on display at the Bike Experience Centre in Boom, Belgium.
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It was a remarkable period of dominance but the perceived manner of Indurain’s victories gave rise to grudging respect rather than provoking passion