A mould-breaker. That was Miguel Poblet. At a time when Spain only produced climbers, he was an exceptional sprinter. Federico Bahamontes, the first Spanish Tour winner and contemporary of Poblet, is quoted as saying: “I was the best climber and he was the best sprinter”. He won 26 stages in Grand Tours (GT), with 20 of those coming in the Giro. The remaining were equally split between the Tour and the Vuelta. He was, in fact, the first rider to win stages in all GTs in the same season (1956). A feat that has only been matched twice since: by Pierino Baffi (1958) and Alessandro Petacchi (2003).
Poblet’s GT success wasn’t limited to stage wins. He placed three times in the top 10 of the Giro, always in 6th, in consecutive years, from 1957-1959. In 1958, he won the points classification of the Italian GT.
There comes a point in the race when Robinson broke away from the pack and after a while he hears a scream from behind telling him to slow down. It was Poblet. The British rider acquiesced to the Spaniard request because there was still plenty of flat roads left to the finish and he would have been caught anyway. The group was joined by some more riders (including Fred De Bruyne) and managed to stay in front until the finish line. Robinson, aware that De Bruyne and Poblet were much better sprinters than he was, decided to lead out his team’s transfer target and the Spanish rider won La Classicissima for the first time.
To complete a vast list of achievements, the Spaniard won his home Vuelta a Catalonia twice, eight years apart, in 1952 and 1960. He obviously liked to race at home because to these two overall victories he added 33 (not a typo) stage wins. Keeping in mind that the Catalonian race had around 10 stages at the time, that’s more than three races worth of stage wins.
In addition to all this winning, Miguel Poblet, like all the greats, was no stranger to a bit of heartbreak as well. During the 1958 season, when he was at his absolute peak, he narrowly missed out on a truly legendary season by taking the silver medal in three different monuments: Milan Sanremo, Paris Roubaix, and Giro di Lombardia. The winners of those editions were, respectively: Rik Van Looy, Leon Van Daele, and Leon Van Daele. Still, until 2005, Poblet’s 2nd place marked the only time a Spanish rider stood on the podium in Roubaix. Juan Antonio Flecha was the second to do it by taking the bronze medal in 2005.
With such a vast palmarés to mention, I’m sure there are some victories that I did not point out but I believe I did not miss any of the most noteworthy.
It seems impossible given the incredible level of winning described above, but Poblet could have even achieved more had it not been for the peculiarities of his time. Despite being a consistent winner in Spain since 1945 (when he was 17 years old), he wouldn’t see international recognition until a decade later, when he first rode the Tour de France as part of the Spanish team and took two stage wins (the first and last stages). He was the first Spanish rider to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France, a mere four years before Bahamontes became the first Spanish rider to win the Tour. Poblet’s career was sensational regardless, but it’s fun to think about what could have been had he raced internationally since his younger years.
As mentioned, Bahamontes and Poblet were contemporaries, both born in 1928. Bahamontes recalled how they were companions in the Tour, often riding together to the hotel after finishing the stages because, as the climber put it: “Miguel spoke French and I didn’t in the first years; that is why I preferred to go with him”.
Bahamontes gained a legendary status in Spain for being the first ever Tour de France winner. Additionally, his proficiency in the mountains was always (even today) more appreciated by the Spanish public than a sprinting prodigy like Miguel Poblet. The media and public’s attention in Spain is heavily geared towards stage races and climbing rather than classics and sprinting. This helps explain why Bahamontes’ status and reverence is higher than Poblet’s. In fact, after he retired in 1961, it took nearly 40 years for Spain to have another sprinter of his caliber: Oscar Freire.
The Spaniard coincided with legends such a a young Jacques Anquetil, an old Ferdinand Kübler, and a similarly aged André Darrigade in the French team La Perle Hutchison, in 1953. Despite riding for a French team, at the time only nations were allowed to compete in the Tour. His team career is kind of tumultuous from that point forward, until joining Ignis (1958-1962). While riding for the team, he was teammates with Giro winners Ercole Baldini and Gastone Nencini, along with Tour superstar Louison Bobet.
Interesting links