Sorrows don’t come alone, they say. The joys in cycling either. In a Tour that started from the Basque Country, the panorama looked apocalyptic for Spain with the abandonment in the first stage, after falling in El Vivero, by Enric Mas and seeing how Mikel Landa did not walk on the mountain, his terrain, until the victories have started to sprout. Two days after Pello Bilbao won in Issoire after 101 inglorious stages in the most important race, Ion Izagirre doubled his happiness.
Another Basque, another stage in the Massif Central and another triumphant escape. History repeated itself in another escape from hard and rocky men. On a leg-breaking route almost identical to Tuesday’s, with constant climbs and Third and Second climbs, the youngest of the Izagirres attacked with 31 kilometers to go to Belleville in Beaujolais and entered the finish line alone.
Throughout the Tour, the Gipuzkoan cyclist from Cofidis had not yet finished in the top 25 in any stage. He looked like he was saving his strength, crouching, waiting for his chance. “In the end it was today,” he confirmed at the finish line. It is his second stage in the French round after Morzine in 2016.
Izagirre, who had the advantage of also having his teammate Guillaume Martin among the 14 breakaways, is a great downhiller and he showed it on the ground that remained after reaching the Col de la Croix Rosier. Pinot, Benoot, Jorgenson and Burgaudeau tried to chase him but were never in range to catch him.
“In the last port I have seen myself with strength and I have started,” he explained about his attack. He started with such conviction that even Mathieu van der Poel had to let him go.
After the descent, his specialty, to open more gap and head towards success. “It has been long. It was 30 km and I didn’t know what was going to happen. But I knew that if I got enough of an advantage, I knew that they would not have the visual reference and they would have doubts, ”he reflected on his plan.
Since 2015, when Joaquim Rodríguez (2) and Rubén Plaza won, Spanish cycling has not repeated a stage in an edition of the Tour. It is curious that Fraile, from Santurtzi, Bilbao, from Gernika, and Ion Izagirre, from Ormaiztegi, -the last three stage hunters- shared the jersey in Astana in 2019.
