82nd Tour de France 1995

The Unstoppable Spaniard Joins the Elite of the Tour de France

Four time defending champion Miguel “Big Mig” Indurain led the short list of contenders for the 1995 Tour de France title. The large framed Spaniard’s bid for another TdF championship would face a strong challenge. 

The fireworks started on stage 7. Indurain attacked on the penultimate climb of the Belgian roller coaster route from Charleroi to Liege. Displaying shear power, Big Mig rode away from everyone except Belgian Johan Bruyneel. American Lance Armstrong, an early member of the Indurain breakaway, said, “He just rode me off his wheel.” 

Hanging on for dear life, Bruyneel tucked himself behind Indurain’s rear wheel all the way to Liege. A grateful Bruyneel won the stage and gained enough time to take the Maillot Jaune. Big Mig's powerful ride had sent a strong message to the peloton. The effort vaulted him into second place overall.

Leader of the Once team, Alex Zulle, used the climb of Comet de Roseland to escape the peloton and ride solo toward the very difficult finishing climb to La Plagne. At the foot of the hors categorie La Plagne (17.4 km, 6.8% ave.), Zulle had a 5 minute lead on the Indurain led chase group. Sensing the danger to his race lead Indurain accelerated the tempo and slowly rode away from the remaining group. At the finish Zulle had the stage win, but Indurain’s late effort cut his time loss to 2’02”. Big Mig survived to remain the race leader +2’27” ahead of Zulle.

Richard Virenque won an ill-fated stage in the ”Circle of Death” (the hardest day in the Pyrenees). Virenque attacked early on the first of six categorized climbs on the day, the Portet d’Aspet. The attack was hard but the chase behind was harder. Virenque solo breakaway and the chase group came over the summit of the climb to start the high speed descent. Soon after reaching 55 mile per hour, Motorola’s Fabio Casartelli over shot a tight turn and crashed head first into a retaining wall. Without a helmet to protect his head, the vulnerable rider suffered a fractured skull and had to be evacuated by helicopter to a nearby hospital in Tarbes. Sadly, Casartelli was pronounced died shortly after his arrival at the hospital. He became the fourth rider to die while racing the Tour. 

SPECIAL NOTE: Tour 1910, Adolphe Heliere drowned while swimming during a rest day. Tour 1935, Francisco Cepeda (Spa) suffered a fractured skull in a fall and died 3 days later. Tour 1967, Tom Simpson (GBr) fell off his bike at the top of Mont Ventoux and died from the combined effects of heat, alcohol, and amphetamines.

The riders were devastated.  The following day the peloton neutralized the race in tribute to their fallen colleague.  Casartelli’s Motorola teammates rolled to the front and led the peloton across the finish line.  Two days later, Motorola’s Lance Armstrong attacked a small breakaway group and rode solo into Limoges for an emotional stage win.  After the race, Armstrong said “Today, I had the strength of two men.” 

One day before riding into Paris for his fifth straight TdF title, Miguel Indurain put the finishing touch on the race with a 48 second stage win in the Lac de Vassiviere ITT.

A jubilant Miguel “Big Mig” Indurain crossed the finish line in Paris to join the elite group of Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault with five Tour de France victories. 

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