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In 1990 Spanish bank Banesto took over as the main sponsor of the Reynolds team. Delgado was the team leader for the Tour de France while Miguel Indurain and Julian Gorospe were the leaders for the week long stage races. When Gorospe took the lead in that year's Vuelta, the team went behind him in a bid to win the race. However Gorospe lost the leader's jersey and Delgado took over the leadership but could not regain the time that Italian Marco Giovannetti had gained and ended the race second overall behind Giovannetti. Over the following years, Indurain rose to become a dominator of stage races winning five editions of the Tour de France and two editions of the Giro d'Italia. Delgado was the team leader for the Vuelta. The team also achieved success with Jean Francois Bernard who won the 1992 edition of Paris-Nice with the team. The team won the Vuelta again in 1998 with Abraham Olano. During this time Alex Zülle joined the team and finished the 1999 Tour de France second overall while legendary climber José Maria Jiménez performed in the Vuelta a Espana. The team became known as iBanesto.com in the final years of the sponsorship of the Banesto bank.
Copyright © chriswhitehead 2008. These images may not be used in any form without written permission. All rights reserved
Guy StV | 05-Nov-2009 03:30 | |