Ion Izagirre confirms retirement after 2026 season

Ion Izagirre has confirmed that the contract extension he signed with Cofidis in October will be the last of his professional career. The 36-year-old will put an end in 2026 to a highly successful career in which he managed to win a stage in all three Grand Tours, a feat very few riders achieve.

The news was confirmed by the rider himself in an interview to Cycling Report. Although he will continue competing throughout 2026, that season will mark the end of an extensive and successful career.

Izagirre turned professional in 2011 with the Euskaltel-Euskadi team. Throughout his career, he has accumulated 18 professional victories and many top-level results, consolidating himself as one of the most reliable and complete climbers in Spanish cycling.

Furthermore, Izagirre is part of the select group of cyclists who have achieved stage victories in all three Grand Tours. His palmarès includes two stage wins in the Tour de France, one stage in the Giro d'Italia, and one stage in the Vuelta a España.

The list of achievements for the Spanish rider also has overall victories in stage races such as the Tour de Pologne and the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, in addition to stage wins in prestigious one-week races like Paris-Nice and the Tour de Suisse. At the national level, Izagirre also won the Spanish nationals (time trial twice and road race once).

Throughout his professional career, Ion Izagirre has worked for several World Tour teams such as Euskaltel-Euskadi, Movistar, Bahrain Victorious, Astana, and, in his final period, Cofidis, the structure with which he will close his sporting career.

Ion Izagirre's farewell comes shortly after that of his older brother, Gorka Izagirre, who retired from professional cycling at the end of 2024. The two shared a team and adventures in the peloton for years, leaving a joint mark on Spanish and international cycling.

In the 2012 Giro, he won in Falzes ahead of top riders such as Alessandro de Marchi and Stef Clemente, who were breakaway masters at the time. In 2014, he was the Spanish National Champion after winning the final sprint against none other than Alejandro Valverde, in a punchy finish that favoured Valverde on paper.

In 2015, he took the overall Tour de Pologne victory, in which major riders such as Ilnur Zakarin, Fabio Aru, Diego Ulissi, Sergio Henao, and Mikel Nieve participated, among others. 2016 was his best season, with the win at the Tour de Romandie prologue ahead of Tom Dumoulin and Geraint Thomas.

Other wins that year include a time trial in the Tour de Suisse, beating Fabian Cancellara and Wilco Kelderman; the Spanish Time Trial Championship, defeating Jonathan Castroviejo; and the stage win in the Tour de France in Morzine, in a Top 10 that included Vincenzo Nibali, Joaquim Rodríguez and Romain Bardet.

After quiet 2017 and 2018 seasons, he returned strong in 2019, winning the final stage of Paris-Nice and surprising everyone by taking the overall classification of the Itzulia. There, he once again defeated top-level cyclists such as Adam Yates, Tadej Pogacar, Mikel Landa, and Enric Mas. In 2020, he completed the Grand Tour stage win quest, after raising his arms in Formigal, from a breakaway with Michael Woods, Rui Costa, and others.

In 2021, he repeated his gold medal in the National Time Trial, beating David de la Cruz's time by 1 second. In 2022, he added a stage win at Itzulia, beating Aleksandr Vlasov, Marc Soler, Daniel Martínez, and Jonas Vingegaard in a final sprint in Arrate. And in 2023, he added a second victory in the Tour de France, gaining almost 1 minute on the rest of the breakaway riders in what is his last professional win so far.