Miguel Induráin
Miguel Induráin Larraya is a retired Spanish road racing cyclist. Induráin won five Tours de France from 1991 to 1995, the fourth, last, to win five times, the only five-time winner to achieve those victories consecutively, he won the Giro d'Italia twice, becoming one of seven people to achieve the Giro-Tour double in the same season. He wore the race leader's yellow jersey in the Tour de France for 60 days. Since the revoking of Lance Armstrong's seven wins, he now holds the record for the most consecutive Tour de France wins and shares the record for most wins with Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx. Induráin's ability and physical size—1.88 m and 80 kilograms —earned him the nickname "Miguelón" or "Big Mig". He was the youngest rider to win the Spanish amateur national road championship, when he was 18, at 20 the youngest rider to lead the Vuelta a España, at 20 he won a stage of the Tour de l'Avenir. Miguel Induráin was born in the village of Villava, now an outlying area of Pamplona.
He has three sisters – Isabel, María Dolores and María Asunción – and a brother, who became a professional cyclist. His first bicycle was a green secondhand Olmo given to him for his 10th birthday, it was stolen when he was 11 and he worked in the fields with his father to pay for a new one. Induráin tried running, basketball and football from nine to 14, he joined the local CC Villavés and rode his first race in July 1978, an event for unlicensed riders in which he finished second. He competed every week thereafter, his hero in cycling was Bernard Hinault. At 18 he was the youngest winner of the national amateur road championship. In 1984 he rode in the Olympic Games at Los Angeles and turned professional on 4 September for Reynolds, he won his first professional race a week a time trial in the Tour de l'Avenir. In 1985 he came second in the prologue, behind Bert Oosterbosch. Oosterbosch lost time on the second stage and Induráin became leader, the youngest rider to do it, he rode the Tour de France that year, as he would do in each of the next 11 years, but dropped out in the fourth stage.
In 1986, Induráin again rode the Tour. He started the 1987 Vuelta a España with bronchitis from the Tour of Belgium, he rode the 1988 Tour de France as teammate of the winner Pedro Delgado. In 1989, he escaped during the ninth stage of the Tour de France, he won the stage and became leader of the mountains classification, wearing the polkadot jersey the next stage, the only time in his career. In 1990, Induráin rode the Tour de France again for Delgado. Induráin finished 10th place. Induráin was a strong time trialist, gaining on rivals and riding defensively in the climbing stages. Induráin won only two Tour stages that were not individual time trials: mountain stages to Cauterets and Luz Ardiden in the Pyrenees. During his five consecutive Tour de France wins he never won a stage, not a time trial; these superior abilities in the discipline fit with the TT heavy Tours of the era, with many featuring between 150 and 200 km of time trialling vs the more common 50–80 km today. In 1991, Greg LeMond was favourite for the Tour and while Induráin was a fine time trialist he was considered too large to be a good climber.
LeMond led the race until the 12th stage but on the 13th he broke down on the Tourmalet, lost more than seven minutes to Induráin, who became the leader and stayed leader to the end. Induráin won the prologue at San Sebastián and seized the yellow jersey, only to lose it the next day. Induráin finished the time trial in stage nine, over 65 km, three minutes ahead of number two on the stage. Near the end he caught Laurent Fignon; the 1992 Tour was remarkable for a long breakaway by Claudio Chiappucci on a stage to Sestriere that included six mountains. Induráin seemed to crack on the final climb to Sestriere being passed by Franco Vona but managed to finish third, enough to claim the yellow jersey once more. From here Induráin would establish his racing style "crush rivals in the time trails and control them in the mountains" His defensive tactic brought criticism from Induráin's boyhood hero, Bernard Hinault, who said: "Induráin is the best rider of his generation but he has won this Tour without great opposition.
If the opposition continues to let him get away with it, his reign looks like lasting a long time". He won the Giro d'Italia in 1992. After winning the early time trial, Induráin gained a decisive advantage on stage 9 to Latina-Terminillo. There, on the first summit finish of the race, Induráin finished in the first group, dropping the main contenders, gaining 30 seconds on Chiappucci. On his way to overall victory by 5mins 12secs over Chiapucci, Induráin won the final stage 21 time trial. Induráin rode the same way in the 1993 Tour, he won the prologue at Puy-du-Fou, in the Vendée region, waited until the ninth stage, the 59 km time trial at Lac de Madine, to take control of the race. He won by 2 m 11s. From on, said Ollivier, he rode defensively, watching Tony Rominger, whom he considered a rival against the clock. Ollivier said Induráin's ride wasn't without effort but another historian, Pierre Chany, said it lacked audacity and that Induráin never "did anything unprovoked which would have allowed this exceptional rider to rise above the rest and excite the crowd".
He won the 1993 Giro d'Italia. Induráin again won the first time trial, the ninth stage from Périgueux to Bergerac, in the south-west, he beat Rominger by two minut
1995 Tour de France
The 1995 Tour de France was the 82nd Tour de France, taking place from 1 to 23 July. It was Miguel Indurain's final victory in the Tour. On the fifteenth stage Italian rider Fabio Casartelli died after an accident on the Col de Portet d'Aspet; the points classification was won by Laurent Jalabert, while Richard Virenque won the mountains classification. Marco Pantani won the young rider classification, ONCE won the team classification. Lance Armstrong's best finish in the Tour de France went down to his 36th-place finish in 1995, after his results from August 1998 to August 2012, including his seven Tour titles were stripped on 22 October 2012. There were 21 teams in the 1995 Tour de France, each composed of 9 cyclists; the teams were selected in two rounds. In May 1995, the first fifteen teams were announced. In June, five wildcards were announced. Shortly before the start, Le Groupement folded because their team leader Luc Leblanc was injured, because of financial problems, their spot went to Aki -- the first team in the reserve list.
Additionally, the organisation decided to invite one extra team: a combined team of Team Telekom and ZG Mobili, with six riders from Telekom and three from ZG Mobili. The teams entering the race were: Qualified teams Invited teams Banesto's Indurain, the winner of the four previous Tours, was the clear favourite for the overall victory, his main challengers were expected to be Rominger from Mapei, Berzin from Gewiss and Zülle from ONCE. The 1995 Tour de France started on 1 July, had two rest days, the first at 10 July when the cyclists were transferred from Seraing to Le Grand-Bornand, the second on 17 July in Saint-Girons; the first riders in the prologue rode in sunny weather, but it started to rain, the riders who started late had to ride on slippery roads. Chris Boardman, a big favourite for the prologue and an outsider for the overall classification, crashed during his ride, was hit by his team's car, had to abandon due to injury; the winner of the prologue was one of the early starters.
Durand stayed in the lead until the third stage, when Laurent Jalabert overtook him due to time bonuses won in intermediate sprints. Jalabert kept the yellow jersey for two stages. Ivan Gotti, member of the Gewiss-team that had won the team time trial in stage three, became the new leader. A surprising attack from Indurain in stage seven changed the standings. Indurain attacked in the hilly Ardennes, only Johan Bruyneel was able to follow him. Indurain did all the work, creating a margin of one minute, Bruyneel only followed him, but beat Indurain in the sprint, winning the stage and becoming the new leader. Indurain was now in second place in the general classification, after winning the time trial in the eighth stage, he became the new leader, his closest rival in the overall classification was Bjarne Riis at 23 seconds, the others were more than two minutes behind. The Tour reached the high mountains in stage nine. Zülle escaped, created a margin of several minutes. Indurain calmly chased him until the final climb.
Zülle won the stage and jumped to the second place in the overall classification, but Indurain won minutes on all other cyclists. The tenth stage was again in the high mountains. Pantani irrelevant for the overall classification, won the stage. Stage twelve was not expected to be relevant for the general classification, but when Laurent Jalabert attacked early in the stage, this changed. Jalabert was a team mate of second-placed Zülle, he was sixth in the general classification, more than nine minutes behind Indurain. Jalabert was joined by three other cyclists. One of them, Melchior Mauri, was in eighth place, was himself a threat; the team mates worked together well, when they were more than ten minutes ahead, Jalabert was the virtual leader. At that moment, Indurain's Banesto team and Riis' Gewiss team started to work together to close the gap, they reduced it to six minutes, which meant that Jalabert jumped to third place in the general classification. ONCE now had three cyclists in the top five: Zülle in second place, Jalabert in fourth place and Mauri in fifth place.
The Pyrenées were reached in stage fourteen. Pantani again showed his strengths in the mountains; the other favourites stayed more or less together, so there were no big changes in the general classification. In the fifteenth stage, Richard Virenque escaped early in the stage, reaching all six tops in the stage first, won the stage. Behind him, several cyclists crashed on the descent of the Portet d'Aspet, including Fabio Casartelli. Casartelli's head hit a concrete barrier at high speed without wearing a helmet, was declared dead in the hospital. Out of respect for Casartelli, the sixteenth stage was raced non-competitively. Casartelli's team mates from Motorola were allowed to cross the finish line first; the eighteenth stage was won by a team mate of Casartelli. Armstrong dedicated this stage victory to Casartelli. Indurain was still leading and extended his lead by winning the last time trial. There were several classifications in the 1995 Tour de France; the most important was the general classification, calculated by adding each cyclist's finishing times on each stage.
The cyclist with the least accumulated time was the race leader, identified by the yellow jersey. Additionally, there was a points classification. In the points classification, cyclists got points for finishing among the best in a stage finish, or in intermediate sprints; the cyclist wit
Mariano Cañardo
Mariano Cañardo Lacasta was a Spanish professional road racing cyclist. He won a record seven editions of the Volta a Catalunya in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as four Spanish national championship titles and one Tour de France stage win. Born in Olite, his nickname was the Catalan of Olite. Cañardo grew up in Navarra, orphaned at the age of 14, he moved with his sister to Barcelona, where he discovered the bike, he was professional from 1926 until 1943, excelling in the early Spanish stage races. An excellent climber and time triallist, Cañardo was next to invincible in the Volta a Catalunya, which he won seven times in addition to two second and two third places. In 1928 he won the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and in 1930 he became the first Spaniard to win the Tour of the Basque Country. In 1935 he finished second overall to Belgian Gustaaf Deloor and won stage 5 in the first Vuelta a España, he won one stage in the 1937 Tour de France. He won the first two runnings of the Tour of Morocco in 1937 and 1938.
His career was hampered by the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939 when all racing in Spain was suspended, World War II, which disrupted racing in the rest of Europe. He ended his career in 1943. After retiring, he started a successful career as a sports race organizer, he was sports director of several cycling teams, among which the Spanish national cycling team, which entered the Tour de France from 1951 to 1953. He became race director of various Catalan races, including the Setmana Catalana and the Circuit Català, he was a member of the board of directors of the Spanish Cycling Federation and was president of the Catalan Cycling Federation from 1969 to 1974. He received the Medalla Forjadors for his merit in the sports history of Catalonia in 1987. Mariano Cañardo Lacasta at Cycling Archives Mariano Canardo – official Tour de France results
Lleida
Lleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida. Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Central Depression, it is the capital city of the Segrià comarca, as well as the largest city in the province. It had 137,387 inhabitants as of 2010, including the contiguous municipalities of Sucs. Lleida is one of the oldest towns in Catalonia, with recorded settlements dating back to the Bronze Age period; until the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the area served as a settlement for an Iberian people, the Ilergetes. The town became a municipality, named Ilerda, under the reign of Augustus, it was reconquered in 1149, after being ruled by the Moors for many centuries, who had conquered the town in the 8th century. In 1297, the University of Lleida was founded. During the following centuries, the town was damaged by several wars such as the Reapers' War in the 17th century and the Spanish Civil War in the 20th century. Since the city has been in a constant urban and demographic growth.
In ancient times the city, named Iltrida and Ilerda, was the chief city of the Ilergetes, an Iberian tribe. Indíbil, king of the Ilergetes, Mandoni, king of the Ausetanes, defended it against the Carthaginian and Roman invasions. Under the Romans, the city was incorporated into the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis, was a place of considerable importance as well as geographically, it stood upon an eminence, on the right bank of the river Sicoris, the principal tributary of the Ebre, some distance above its confluence with the Cinga. Its situation induced the legates of Pompey in Spain to make it the key of their defense against Caesar, in the first year of the Civil War. Afranius and Marcus Petreius threw themselves into the place with five legions; the resources exhibited by the great general, in a contest where the formation of the district and the elements of nature seemed in league with his enemies, have been extolled. It ended by the capitulation of Afranius and Petreius, who were conquered as much by Caesar's generosity as by his strategy.
In consequence of the battle, the Latin phrase Ilerdam videas is said to have been used by people who wanted to cast bad luck on someone else. Under the Roman empire, Ilerda was a flourishing city, a municipium, it minted its own coins. It had a fine stone bridge over the Sicoris. In the time of Ausonius the city had fallen into decay, it was part of Visigothic and Muslim Hispania until it was conquered from the Moors by Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona in 1149. It used to be the seat of a major university, the oldest in the Crown of Aragon, until 1717, when it was moved by Philip V to the nearby town of Cervera; the University of Lleida is nowadays active again since 1991. During the Reapers' War, Lleida was occupied by the rebel forces. In 1644 the city was conquered by the Spanish under D. Felipe da Silva. Lleida served as a key defense point for Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, fell to the Insurgents, whose air forces bombed it extensively, in 1937 and 1938; the November 2, 1937 Legion Condor attacks against Lleida became infamous since they were aimed to the school known as Liceu Escolar de Lleida.
48 children and several teachers died in it that day, 300 people were killed on the November 2 bombings altogether, the town would be bombed and sieged again in 1938, when it was conquered by Franco's forces. After some decades without any kind of population growth, it met a massive migration of Andalusians who helped the town undergo a relative demographic growth. Nowadays it is home to immigrants of 146 different nationalities. During 2007 Lleida was the year's Capital of Catalan Culture. Lleida has a temperate semi-arid climate. Winters are foggy though cooler than places on the coast while summers are hot and dry. Frosts are common during winter although snowfall can fall, averaging 1 or 2 days. Precipitation is low, with an annual average of 369 millimetres with a peak in April and May and another peak in September and October. Lleida is divided in the following districts by the Observatori Socioeconòmic de Lleida: Lleida is served by the RENFE, Spanish state railway's Madrid-Barcelona high-speed rail line, serving Barcelona, Calatayud and Madrid.
Lleida has a new airport opened in January 2010, a minor airfield located in Alfès. The town is the western terminus of the Eix Transversal Lleida-Girona, a railway covering the same distance is under planning. Lleida's only passenger railway station is Lleida Pirineus, it is served by both Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya train lines. In the future a Rodalies Lleida commuter network will connect the town with its adjacent area and the main towns of its province, improving the existing network with more train frequency and newly built infrastructure. A second railway station is Pla de la Vilanoveta in an industrial area, only used by freight trains. A future railway museum will be located in its facilities. Since 2008 the bulk of public transpo
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula known as Iberia, is located in the southwest corner of Europe. The peninsula is principally divided between Portugal, comprising most of their territory, it includes Andorra, small areas of France, the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. With an area of 596,740 square kilometres ), it is both the second largest European peninsula by area, after the Scandinavian Peninsula, by population, after the Balkan Peninsula; the word Iberia is a noun adapted from the Latin word "Hiberia" originated by the Ancient Greek word Ἰβηρία by Greek geographers under the rule of the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula. At that time, the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people. Strabo's'Iberia' was delineated from Keltikē by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass southwest of there. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the establishment of the new Castillian language in Spain, the word "Iberia" appeared for the first time in use as a direct'descendant' of the Greek word "Ἰβηρία" and the Roman word "Hiberia".
The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from the Phoenicians, by voyaging westward on the Mediterranean. Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia, which he wrote about circa 500 BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with... Iberia." According to Strabo, prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος" as far north as the river Rhône in France, but they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia." Strabo refers to the Carretanians as people "of the Iberian stock" living in the Pyrenees, who are distinct from either Celts or Celtiberians. According to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia as synonyms.
The confusion of the words was because of an overlapping in geographic perspectives. The Latin word Hiberia, similar to the Greek Iberia translates to "land of the Hiberians"; this word was derived from the river Ebro. Hiber was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro; the first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Ennius in 200 BC. Virgil refers to the Ipacatos Hiberos in his Georgics; the Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania. As they became politically interested in the former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior for'near' and'far' Hispania. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces: Hispania Baetica, Hispania Tarraconensis, Hispania Lusitania. Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces. Whatever language may have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones, preserved as a language isolate by the barrier of the Pyrenees.
The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so well known. Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called "the whole of Spain" Hiberia because of the Hiberus River; the river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian, uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius states that the "native name" is Ibēr the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination; the early range of these natives, which geographers and historians place from today's southern Spain to today's southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet unknown language, dubbed "Iberian." Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence on the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologizing: if the language remains unknown, the meanings of the words, including Iber, must remain unknown.
In modern Basque, the word ibar means "valley" or "watered meadow", while ibai means "river", but there is no proof relating the etymology of the Ebro River with these Basque names. The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited for at least 1.2 million years as remains found in the sites in the Atapuerca Mountains demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of Gran Dolina, where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and one million years ago, were found in 1994. Experts have debated whether these skeletons belong to the species Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, or a new species called Homo antecessor. Around 200,000 BP, during the Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000 BP, during the Middle Paleolithic period, the last glacial event began and the Neanderthal Mousterian culture was established. Around 37,000 BP, during the Upper Paleolithic, the Neanderthal Châtelperronian cultural period began. Emanating from Southern France, this culture extended into the north of the p
Autonomous communities of Spain
In Spain, an autonomous community is a first-level political and administrative division, created in accordance with the Spanish constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy of the nationalities and regions that make up Spain. Spain is not a federation, but a decentralized unitary state. While sovereignty is vested in the nation as a whole, represented in the central institutions of government, the nation has, in variable degrees, devolved power to the communities, which, in turn, exercise their right to self-government within the limits set forth in the constitution and their autonomous statutes; each community has its own set of devolved powers. Some scholars have referred to the resulting system as a federal system in all but name, or a "federation without federalism". There are 17 autonomous communities and two autonomous cities that are collectively known as "autonomies"; the two autonomous cities have the right to become autonomous communities, but neither has yet exercised it.
This unique framework of territorial administration is known as the "State of Autonomies". The autonomous communities are governed according to the constitution and their own organic laws known as Statutes of Autonomy, which contain all the competences that they assume. Since devolution was intended to be asymmetrical in nature, the scope of competences vary for each community, but all have the same parliamentary structure. Spain is a diverse country made up of several different regions with varying economic and social structures, as well as different languages and historical and cultural traditions. While the entire Spanish territory was united under one crown in 1479 this was not a process of national homogenization or amalgamation; the constituent territories—be it crowns, principalities or dominions—retained much of their former institutional existence, including limited legislative, judicial or fiscal autonomy. These territories exhibited a variety of local customs, laws and currencies until the mid nineteenth century.
From the 18th century onwards, the Bourbon kings and the government tried to establish a more centralized regime. Leading figures of the Spanish Enlightenment advocated for the building of a Spanish nation beyond the internal territorial boundaries; this culminated in 1833, when Spain was divided into 49 provinces, which served as transmission belts for policies developed in Madrid. However, unlike in other European countries such as France, where regional languages were spoken in rural areas or less developed regions, two important regional languages of Spain were spoken in some of the most industrialized areas, moreover, enjoyed higher levels of prosperity, in addition to having their own cultures and historical consciousness; these were Catalonia. This gave rise to peripheral nationalisms along with Spanish nationalism; therefore and social changes that had produced a national cultural unification in France had the opposite effect in Spain. As such, Spanish history since the late 19th century has been shaped by a dialectical struggle between Spanish nationalism and peripheral nationalisms in Catalonia and the Basque Country, to a lesser degree in Galicia.
In a response to Catalan demands, limited autonomy was granted to Catalonia in 1914, only to be abolished in 1923. It was granted again in 1932 during the Second Spanish Republic, when the Generalitat, Catalonia's mediaeval institution of government, was restored; the constitution of 1931 envisaged a territorial division for all Spain in "autonomous regions", never attained—only Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia had approved "Statutes of Autonomy"—the process being thwarted by the Spanish Civil War that broke out in 1936, the victory of the rebel Nationalist forces under Francisco Franco. During General Franco's dictatorial regime, centralism was most forcefully enforced as a way of preserving the "unity of the Spanish nation". Peripheral nationalism, along with communism and atheism were regarded by his regime as the main threats, his attempts to fight separatism with heavy-handed but sporadic repression, his severe suppression of language and regional identities backfired: the demands for democracy became intertwined with demands for the recognition of a pluralistic vision of the Spanish nationhood.
When Franco died in 1975, Spain entered into a phase of transition towards democracy. The most difficult task of the newly democratically elected Cortes Generales in 1977 acting as a Constituent Assembly was to transition from a unitary centralized state into a decentralized state in a way that would satisfy the demands of the peripheral nationalists; the Prime Minister of Spain, Adolfo Suárez, met with Josep Tarradellas, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia in exile. An agreement was made so that the Generalitat would be restored and limited competencies would be transferred while the constitution was still being written. Shortly after, the government allowed the creation of "assemblies of members of parliament" integrated by deputies and senators of the different territories of Spain, so that they could constitute "pre-autonomic regimes" for their regions as well; the Fathers of the Constitution had to strike a balance between the opposing views of Spain—on the one hand, the centralist view inherited from Franco's regime, on the other hand federalism and a pluralistic view of Spain as a "nation of nations".
Peripheral nationalist
Miguel Ángel López (cyclist)
Miguel Ángel López is a Colombian cyclist, who rides for UCI WorldTeam Astana. In 2016, López won his first World Tour stage race at the Tour de Suisse and achieved his maiden grand tour stage victory the following season on Stage 11 of the Vuelta a España, followed by another victory on Stage 15, he was the overall winner of the Tour Colombia and the Volta a Catalunya in 2019. López was born in Pesca. López celebrated success in 2014. In August he won the most prestigious under 23 cycling race; the young cyclist won the U23 version of the Vuelta a Colombia. Following his success in 2014, López was granted a contract with a UCI WorldTeam, his success in stage races continued, finishing 4th overall and winning a stage at the Vuelta a Burgos and 7th overall in the Tour de Suisse. 2016 was López's breakthrough season. He finished 4th in the Tour de San Luis, the first race of his season, winning Stage 6 and taking the young rider classification. One month López finished third and won a stage at the Tour de Langkawi, an eight-day race held in Malaysia.
The biggest win yet of his career came at the Tour de Suisse, where he won the general classification ahead of Ion Izagirre and Warren Barguil. Following these successes, López was one of five riders selected to represent Colombia in the road race at the Olympics. López started his first grand tour at the Vuelta a España where he was the chosen team leader but he was forced to abandon the race on Stage 6 following a crash on Stage 3. López was named on the start list for the Vuelta a España in a strong Astana line-up alongside former race winner Fabio Aru. On Stage 11, he took his first grand tour stage victory, distancing himself from race favourites Chris Froome, Vincenzo Nibali and Wilco Kelderman in the last 2km of the first-category climb up to the Calar Alto Observatory. López's fine form in the mountains continued on Stage 14 to Sierra de la Pandera where he once again distanced the race leaders to finish second to Rafał Majka on the first especial category climb of the race, he went on to win the following Stage 15 after a solo escape on the summit finish, yet again distancing the race favorites for his second Vuelta stage victory.
In May 2018, he was named in the startlist for the 2018 Giro d'Italia. A race which he finished in 3rd place in the overall classification behind Chris Froome and Tom Dumoulin. López won the general classification in the 2019 Volta a Catalunya in March. Miguel Ángel López at ProCyclingStats
2019 Volta a Catalunya
Sebastià Masdeu (ESP)
Mariano Cañardo (ESP) (7 wins)
Miguel López (COL).jpg)
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Victor Fontan (FRA)
Sean Kelly (IRL)
Italy
Belgium, 
Switzerland
Australia, 
Luxembourg, 
Netherlands, 
Russia, 
Ukraine, 
United Kingdom
