Gran Premio Miguel Indurain

The Gran Premio Miguel Indurain is a men's one-day bike race over the hills around Estella-Lizarra in Navarre, northern Spain, held around the start of April. The Club Ciclista Estella has organized it since 1951 under five names, and since 1999 it has carried the name of Miguel Induráin, the Navarrese rider who won the Tour de France five times. The 2026 edition, raced as the Gran Premio Miguel Indurain - Laboral Kutxa, covered 203.9 kilometers with start and finish in Estella.

The Gran Premio Miguel Indurain is a men’s one-day race over the hills around Estella-Lizarra, in Navarre in northern Spain, held around the start of April. The Club Ciclista Estella has run it since 1951. Miguel Induráin won it in 1987, twelve years before the race took his name.

Miguel Induráin won it in 1987, before it had his name

Induráin comes from Navarre and won the Tour de France five times in a row, from 1991 to 1995. Four years before the first of those Tours he won the Estella race, then called the Gran Premio Navarra, as a rider of the Reynolds-Seur team. The race has carried his name since 1999, when Stefano Garzelli won the first Gran Premio Miguel Indurain. In 2018 Induráin was at the finish to congratulate the winner, Alejandro Valverde, in person.

Five names for one Estella race since 1951

The Club Ciclista Estella was founded in 1951, and its list of winners starts that year with the Campeonato Vasco-Navarro de Montaña. Hortensio Vidaurreta won the first three editions. According to the list in the organizer's road book, the race became the Gran Premio Navarra in 1968 and the Trofeo Comunidad Foral de Navarra in 1989, added the word Internacional to that name for 1998 and has been the Gran Premio Miguel Indurain since 1999.

Pedro Delgado won it in 1988 and 1990. The race was not held in 1984, because of money problems, in 1986, when the date clashed with an international race, or in 2020, because of the coronavirus.

Alto de Eraul, ten kilometers from the finish

The Alto de Eraul is 3.8 kilometers long at 5.5 percent, and on the 2026 route its top came 9.6 kilometers from the line. It is the last classified climb, and the winning move has started there several times. In 2016 an attack by Giovanni Visconti on the Eraul drew out Sergio Henao and Visconti’s teammate Ion Izagirre, and Izagirre beat Henao in a two-rider sprint on the uphill finish used that year.

In 2021 Valverde made his first attack on the Eraul and split a peloton of 40 riders. In 2023 Izagirre and Sergio Higuita left the rest behind on it, and in 2026 Izagirre attacked 1.5 kilometers from the top with only Quinn Simmons able to follow.

The Ibarra wall, 600 meters at 11 percent

The last climb, the Alto de Ibarra, is 600 meters long at 11 percent, and the descent from it to the finish is as steep. In 2021 Valverde was 40 and had not won a race for 18 months. Alexey Lutsenko flew past him and Luis León Sánchez on the descent before the Ibarra and hit the wall first, but the three came back together, and Valverde dropped both on the steep part and won by six seconds.

In 2025 Thibau Nys, in his first road race of the season, passed the last attackers on the Ibarra and held three seconds to the line. In 2026 Izagirre, Simmons and Markel Beloki reached the climb together. Izagirre accelerated on the steepest section and dropped Beloki first, then Simmons.

Three wins each for Vicioso, Valverde and Izagirre

Since the race took Induráin’s name, three riders have won it three times: Ángel Vicioso in 2001, 2002 and 2015, Valverde in 2014, 2018 and 2021, and Izagirre in 2016, 2023 and 2026. Under the earlier names, Vidaurreta from 1951 to 1953 and Juan Fernández in 1979, 1980 and 1983 did the same. Izagirre, who comes from Ormaiztegi in the Basque Country, had also finished second in 2015. He took his third win in the season he had announced as his last.

Snow in 2022 took out the three main climbs

On the morning of the 2022 race the riders woke to snow lying thick on the ground. The organizer cut the Guirguillano, the Lezáun and the Eraul and shortened the race to 192 kilometers, which still left 2,400 meters of climbing around Estella. Pierre Latour attacked on the last steep climb and Marc Hirschi joined him, other riders caught them on the technical descent, and Warren Barguil won the sprint from Aleksandr Vlasov and Simon Clarke.

In 2021 Alejandro Valverde, 40 years old and without a win for 18 months, dropped Alexey Lutsenko and Luis León Sánchez on the Ibarra wall and won for the third time. In 2026 Ion Izagirre, in the season he had announced as his last, left Quinn Simmons behind on the same climb for his own third win. Miguel Induráin won here in 1987, before the race had his name.