Iñigo San Millán to head Athletic Club's High Performance Department

Iñigo San Millán, a physiologist from Álava, and a leading figure in the application of science to sports performance, will join Athletic Club. For the last four years San Millán has been director of performance at professional cycling outfit UAE Team Emirates, the team led Slovenian star Tadej Pogačar. Iñigo will hold the same position in the newly created department created at Lezama, which he will run with Jon Larruskain as assistant. 

The professional, a native of Laguardia, spent much of his youth in Madrid where he worked with Real Madrid's youth teams for six seasons. He has more than 25 years of experience advising elite athletes and clubs, and gained particular prominence for personally coaching and supervising Pogačar. San Millán is highly regarded in the fields of sports medicine (graduate of the University of Colorado, USA), physiology (PhD from the UPV-EHU), metabolic function/nutrition and scientific monitoring of sports performance data.

In all these fields, he has carried out numerous studies, publications and implementation projects that place him at the world forefront in scientific research applied to sport, including the creation of the first university sports performance programme in the United States (University of Colorado), the first comprehensive sports performance department in cycling (in the UCI ProTeam Garmin-Slipstream team in 2009) and various innovative projects and new methodologies as an external consultant for basketball (NBA) and American football (NFL) franchises, European football clubs and the United States Olympic Committee.

Until joining Athletic Club, Iñigo San Millán has combined his position as Associate Professor of Sports Medicine and Human Physiology at the University of Colorado with his role as performance director at UAE, a position for which he has been recognised globally as a result of his individual work to optimise the performance of cyclists, especially by creating the first athlete metabolic monitoring and evaluation platform for competition preparation.

As of Wednesday when he starts work at Lezama, his main function at Athletic Club will be to lead the High Performance Department, whose objective is to maximise the conditions and sporting performance of the players - both in the men's and women's first teams and in the development of players in the academy.

The High Performance Department is made up of five main departments that already complement each other and will now work under the leadership of Iñigo San Millán:

• The Club's Medical Services, led by Josean Lekue.
• The Physical and Conditional Department, directed by Aitor Ugarte and, until July 2022, dependent on methodology.
• The Department of Psychology and Comprehensive Player Care, created in July 2022 and led by sports psychologist Eduardo Morelló.
• The Nutrition Department, led by Toscana Viar.
• The Sports Science Department, created in July 2022 and to be headed by Imanol Martín, whose objective is to channel scientific and technological innovation to improve sports performance through the different departments.

Furthermore, Jon Larruskain, until now responsible for the Sports Science Departmetn, has been appointed as assistant director of the High Performance Department, supporting Iñigo San Millán in his arrival at Lezama and for the implementation of this new project.

Given commitments acquired prior to his arrival, San Millán will finish attending to his teaching and research obligations at the University of Colorado, in addition to being Athletic Club's high performance director. As of next May, he will leave his teaching and research duties in the United States.

Furthermore, given the importance of San Millán's work, Athletic Club and UAE have reached an agreement so he can continue to monitor Tadej Pogačar's performance, as well as that of other cyclists who work with him.

Athletic is looking to take a step forward in the transformation and modernisation of in sports performance, completing the construction of a new department that, due to its cutting-edge ambition, is considered key to the club's long-term success.