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Madrid financial circles, the banking group Banesto at times raises eyebrows when its directors announce some new project or acquisition which no one else quite sees the wisdom of. But that wasn't the case in December when the cycling team which Banesto sponsors signed champion rider Miguel Indurain to a new two-year contract for a cool $5 million.
In Europe, the 30-year-old cyclist is perhaps the best-known Spanish sports figure of the decade after winning the prestigious Tour de France race for the third straight year last July. That win followed by weeks his victory in the Giro d'Italia, the second time the young Basque had taken that title.
Curiously, Indurain has yet to win his home country's premier cycling event, the Vuelta de Espana,...