Last July 1, the Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogacar, two-time winner of the Tour, put on the Athletic shirt before the start of the race in Bilbao and earned a standing ovation from the crowd that packed the surroundings of San Mamés, the scene of the Great Department. Now it is Iñigo San Millán (Laguardia, 51 years old), responsible for their preparation in the UAE since they both arrived at the team in 2019, who takes it upon themselves after being named head of the High Performance department of the red-and-white club, after four seasons performing the same function in the cycling team, in which he has personally monitored the preparation of Pogacar and also that of Juan Ayuso, since both took their first steps in the cycling elite.
In fact, as reported by Athletic, the red and white club has reached an agreement with the UAE, which is directed by a Biscayan, Josean Fernández Matxin, so that San Millán, a renowned physiologist, can continue monitoring the performance of the Slovenian champion, the Spanish and other cyclists who work with him. To a certain extent, the agreement is similar to the one reached in October 1995 by Sabino Padilla, also signed by Athletic, and who continued to act as personal trainer for Miguel Indurain and Martín Fiz, although separated from the Banesto team in which he had worked as a doctor. during the Navarrese’s most successful years.
Furthermore, although San Millán has arrived in Bilbao to get to know those who will work under him at the club up close, he will not fully join the leadership of Athletic’s high performance area until next May because, “given his commitments acquired, he will finish attending to his teaching and research obligations at the University of Colorado,” where he created the first university sports performance program in the United States. In the UAE he has also combined his work in Denver with the cycling team’s concentrations. Now, Athletic, in which a boy from his town, Óscar De Marcos, plays, will be his field of work for him, who has a doctorate in Exercise Physiology from the University of the Basque Country and completed postdoctoral training at the Fundación de the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where he studied the effects of exercise on cardiovascular health.
San Millán played for six seasons in the lower categories of Real Madrid, then, after his studies, he settled in Colorado, where he graduated in sports medicine and, in addition to his work at the university, founded the first comprehensive sports performance department in cycling. in 2009 on the Garmin team. He has maintained various collaborations as an external advisor with NBA and American Football League teams and also the United States Olympic Committee. His mission now is to lead the High Performance Department, to maximize the conditions and sporting performance of the footballers, both in the men’s and women’s first teams and in the development of the Lezama teams, “in everything that exceeds the scope of work of the coaches”, they point out from the club.
San Millán, in addition to its task in improving the performance of athletes, is also involved in the fight against cancer. He has published several scientific articles in which he has taken cyclists from the UAE, elite athletes, as a study population, with the idea that understanding the functioning of an almost perfect body, like that of a runner, can help study the diseases of imperfect bodies. “With three droplets of blood we can see up to 1,500 metabolic parameters of a person. It helps us understand how a cyclist’s body works and recovers,” he noted in an interview, “and with this knowledge, we are now able to understand certain diseases much better than five years ago.” The new Director of High Performance at Athletic has carried out research on mitochondrial dysfunction and its relationship with diabetes or Alzheimer’s, or the relationship between lactate and various types of cancer. He has even gotten Pogacar involved in his studies with a cancer research foundation that they have founded together, because “sport in itself is very good, but as an engine for the advancement of society it is much better.”
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