sincos

I have no idea whether Indurain was clean or not but he was never a poor climber. His only road stage wins in the tour were mountain stages with uphill finishes. At Cauterets he was the rabbit that was allowed to win because Delgado had already dropped Lemond and Fignon; at Luz Ardiden he was marking Lemond and when it was clear Delgado was dropped had to make sure Lemond didn't get max time bonuses (even then commentators were wondering if Reynolds hadn't backed the wrong horse that year). His early pro form was also good, with wins at Paris-Nice and smaller stage races like Catalunya, so he didn't come out of nowhere. But he was brought in slowly to the Tour (and his personality wasn't one that would demand being the team number 1).

As for the Conconi connection (which was supposedly for asthma) ... interestingly when the files of Conconi, Ferrari, and Fuentes were raided only a couple of big names did not show up for PEDs. Lemond was one ... and Indurain was another. Not to say he didn't get dope elsewhere -- but anyone who was serious about PEDs went to either Ferrari or Conconi.