Vuelta a España

24 August 2011

As the Vuelta a España winds its way through Spain we've been thinking back 28 years to Micheal's most memorable Grand Tour stage win - the final leg of the 1983 Vuelta which finished in Madrid. 

There were 1 million people lining the streets of Madrid that day, how many Rock Stars get that sized audience?  It had been quite a controversial Tour as Marino Lejarreta is a Basque and both he and Micheal (his room-mate and 2nd in charge) had armed police riding beside them on motorbikes for protection during the Tour.  On that final day Bernard Hinault, the general classification winner that year, sent teammate Laurent Fignon out to chase Micheal down, but in the end Micheal was not to be caught!  What a fantastic moment, perfectly captured in this photo taken by Jaime Pato on the finish line.

We've hunted long and hard for a copy of this photo over the years.  We had to leave for Australia the day after the race and were never able to track one down.  Now we've finally found an old archived copy as well as the Newspaper Page it appeared on!  See the story below.

© DIARIO ABC B.L, Madrid, 2009.

On Page 1 you'll see the photo of Micheal winning the final stage bottom left.  In the top photo you can see Hinault and Micheal's team captain Mariano Lejarreta on the podium.  On both page 1 and page 2 you can see references to "el Australiano, Miceal Wilson".  Exciting stuff!