Miguel Martinez, the 38 year old French Cross County rider is best known to the Australian mountain bike community for his strong rivalry to Cadel Evans through the 90s and taking a Gold Medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. He then went on to form a part of the French domination of the World Cup, but vanished from the dirt and spent the last few years racing road bikes for various teams. A good history of his tumultuous career here.
We spotted the muscly little powerhouse in Cairns, rocking a super Italian style setup, on a new team with the Italian high end lightweight component manufacturer FRM. Marzocchi forks, gold Formula brakes and gold bar ends set this guy apart from the rest, still killing it and clearly having a good time back in Cairns, 18 years later than the last time.
Enjoy some old throwback videos from the Litte Mig era.
The Sydney 2000 Olympics.
1996 Cairns World Champs, where Miguel placed second ahead of Cadel Evans.
The 1999 World Champs, with the benefit of hindsight, this race may have been a slightly turbocharged event.