Indurain: Tempered Passion is a Miguel Indurain biography written by Javier Garcia Sanchez. First published in Spanish, the English edition was published back in 2002.
It's taken me a while to read this book, probably around a year. I would pick it up, read a few chapters then put it down again whenever another book came along that I could read instead. Why? Because the author, an obvious Indurain fanatic provides a completely subjective and biased view point to Indurain's life.
Don't get me wrong, Indurain had a big impact on me. I remember watching him racing back in the early Nineties when I first started watching the Tour de France on Channel 4. He was the main guy, a champion and in his heyday seemed almost unbeatable. Legend has it he had the same lung capacity as a horse. In a pre Lance Armstrong era he really was the main man and I liked him alot.
I was really looking forward to reading this book. Reliving all those faded memories of his many victories and looking forward to learning about the mild mannered champion. What I got was many long winded, over exaggerated and over dramatic, glorification's of Indurain's victories along with multiple paranoid, everyones out to get Miguel, explanations for his sporting failures. Many of Sanchez's ramblings border on the fictitious to say the least.
In short Sanchez's portrayal of Indurain is entirely one sided. The only positive thing I can say is that Sanchez, on occasion, possesses a poetic and imaginative writing style that does conjure up some wonderful images to the reader.
However, I really cannot recommend this book to anyone other than Indurain fans who simply must read anything they can lay there hands on without a care for the books content. I really hope somebody comes along and rises to the challenge of putting together an Indurain biography deserved of the great man because this biography misses by a very long way!
Indurain: A Tempered Passion, written by Javier Garcia Sanchez, is published by Mousehold Press.
It's taken me a while to read this book, probably around a year. I would pick it up, read a few chapters then put it down again whenever another book came along that I could read instead. Why? Because the author, an obvious Indurain fanatic provides a completely subjective and biased view point to Indurain's life.
Don't get me wrong, Indurain had a big impact on me. I remember watching him racing back in the early Nineties when I first started watching the Tour de France on Channel 4. He was the main guy, a champion and in his heyday seemed almost unbeatable. Legend has it he had the same lung capacity as a horse. In a pre Lance Armstrong era he really was the main man and I liked him alot.
I was really looking forward to reading this book. Reliving all those faded memories of his many victories and looking forward to learning about the mild mannered champion. What I got was many long winded, over exaggerated and over dramatic, glorification's of Indurain's victories along with multiple paranoid, everyones out to get Miguel, explanations for his sporting failures. Many of Sanchez's ramblings border on the fictitious to say the least.
In short Sanchez's portrayal of Indurain is entirely one sided. The only positive thing I can say is that Sanchez, on occasion, possesses a poetic and imaginative writing style that does conjure up some wonderful images to the reader.
However, I really cannot recommend this book to anyone other than Indurain fans who simply must read anything they can lay there hands on without a care for the books content. I really hope somebody comes along and rises to the challenge of putting together an Indurain biography deserved of the great man because this biography misses by a very long way!
Indurain: A Tempered Passion, written by Javier Garcia Sanchez, is published by Mousehold Press.
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