Liège-Bastogne-Liège – Ion Izagirre 21st

A monument of world cycling, Liège-Bastogne-Liège once again lived up to its reputation on Sunday, April 26, 2026. The legendary Ardennes classic gave the Cofidis team no quarter. The northerners saw their leader, Ion Izagirre, go down at the 2-kilometer mark before a group of 50 riders—including Paul Ourselin and Sam Maisonobe—set the pace for nearly two hours of racing. With great self-sacrifice, the Cofidis team did everything they could to put their leader in the best possible position for the race’s finale. Trying to break away from the chase group 1.3 km from the finish, Ion Izagirre had to settle for 21st place in the sprint. A better end to the day than how it had started. 

Bingen Fernandez, sports director: "We started out with the idea of trying to get a result with Ion Izagirre and seeing how Dylan Teuns was doing as well. We had some bad luck right from the 2-kilometer mark because Ion crashed.
He was almost about to abandon the race, but in the end he managed to keep riding.  Once we got back into the peloton after the crash, we tried at least to assess the situation, because it was a bit of a complicated race compared to a normal race situation. There was a group of 50 riders with Remco Evenoepoel in it.
UAE Team Emirates – XRG worked to control the pace, especially alongside Decathlon CMA CGM Team. From there, once the gap was closed and the group was caught, Ion managed to keep up with the leaders. In the end, he tried to attack 1.3 km from the finish line to catch the group off guard, but he didn’t succeed. He was caught just past the 1-kilometer marker.  Once he was caught, he couldn’t find a good position. He ended up finishing in the top 20 in the sprint. He took the risk of trying something, of catching them off guard,  but it didn’t work out. Ion had a great mindset. He was in the leading group.

We had Paul Ourselin and Sam Maisonobe in the group of 50. That gave us some peace of mind, too. The whole team worked to protect Ion as much as possible. He set up a small breakaway for us. We always want to finish with a better result, but considering his crash and the distance he’d covered—where he was almost ready to give up—we succeeded and got our leader to the front."