Abraham Olano swept to stardom in late-1995 after winning the World Road Race Championship in Colombia - fulfilling the potential he'd been showing in his first two years as a professional. Great things were predicted for Olano, a former national track-champion, for he carried the hopes of the Spanish sporting-public with him in their quest to have another Tour de France champion in the mould of Indurain - his teamate, friend, and near neighbour who had played a major role in Olano's Worlds success.
Yet Olano's career seemed to suffer, not prosper, because of this un-solicited expectation and inevitable comparison; a factor not helped by the Basque's disability as a climber. 1996 - the year Olano actually wore the Rainbow Jersey - saw him lose the Giro d'Italia in the mountains, and then suffer horribly in the Tour de France, most especially in the Pyrenees, and with an ailing Indurain alongside him... Although Olano finally won a major tour in 1998 - the Vuelta a España - his career was limited to his time-trialing that itself had clashed with other specialists of his era, like Chris Boardman and Jan Ullrich. Olano had come into the sport full of immense promise, and did take some significant victories along the way - yet he was to retire in 2002 as a somewhat sad and disillusioned athlete for whom riding a bike as a living had proved to be too much to bear...
