Tour de France Stage 8 | 03 Jul 21 | |||||
Ion Izagirre Insausti (born 4 February 1989) is a Spanish professional road bicycle racer and cyclo-cross rider from the Basque Country, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Cofidis. He is sometimes referred to as Jon Izaguirre, to retain the correct pronunciation under Castilian orthography.
Career
Born in Ormaiztegi in the Basque Country, Izagirre comes from a family of professional cyclists, as both his father José Ramón and brother Gorka have competed professionally on the roads and in cyclo-cross. Having joined the Euskaltel–Euskadi team – alongside brother Gorka – from the 2011 season onwards,
Izagirre won his first professional races in the spring of 2012; he won the individual time trial at the Vuelta a Asturias in April, before taking a victory during his Grand Tour début at the Giro d'Italia. During the sixteenth stage, Izagirre made a solo breakaway with 4 km (2.5 mi) remaining, before winning the stage by sixteen seconds from his nearest competitor.
Following the collapse of the Euskatel-Euskadi team at the end of the 2013 season, both Izagirre brothers were signed by the Movistar Team for the 2014 season.
In 2015, Izagirre won the Tour de Pologne. He started the final stage sixth on general classification but overhauled race leader Sergio Henao (Team Sky) and the others above him by virtue of a superior time trial performance on the rolling 25 km circuit.
Izagirre won Stage 20 of the 2016 Tour de France in Morzine, after attacking on the wet descent from a three rider group that led over the final climb of Col de Joux Plane.
Izagirre moved to the newly formed Bahrain–Merida team for the 2017 season. He was the team's GC leader at the 2017 Tour de France, but crashed out on Stage 1, an individual time trial in Düsseldorf, suffering a lumbar fracture which ended his season.
He was joined at Bahrain–Merida by his brother Gorka for the 2018 season. In August 2018 it was announced that the brothers would join Astana in 2019.
Tour of the Basque Country 2019 Astana Qazaqstan Team |