Tour de France: Cofidis and their new band of closers

ABC: always be closing. It is the mantra of salesmen everywhere and guides the cutthroat nature of the business. It is also something that Cofidis has been attempting to do at the Tour de France since 2008. In 2023, they closed on not one but two stage wins.

On Thursday, Ion Izagirre took stage 12 of the Tour de France in solo fashion, powering away from a breakaway after a frantic day of racing around Beaujolais.

For Izagirre, it was his second career Tour stage win, but, notably, it was also the second win for his team Cofidis this Tour de France. For most of the teams in the race, two stage wins would be a successful Tour. But for the French World Tour outfit, it is monumental, since their previous Tour stage was won in 2008.

“It’s incredible. For the whole Tour so far I tried to break away and it didn’t work out but today, yes. We were going well with Guillaume Martin all day. I attacked in the last climb from very far out and I could maintain the time difference to get the victory for myself. I was confident in my strength. I knew that if I earned enough lead, my adversaries wouldn’t have me in sight and it would play in my favour.

“It’s an incredible Tour for us. We came with the intention of winning a stage and getting a top-10 on GC. Now we have two victories and Guillaume is having an incredible Tour, so we hope to continue in that way.”

Interestingly, the Cofidis drought was not the only one that was snapped at this year’s Tour. Before Pello Bilbao’s stage 10 win, Spain had not won a stage since the 2018 Tour. That five year span was the longest the country has gone stage-less in 40 years, with the last drought of similar length stretching from 1978-1983. With Izagirre’s win, there have now been two Spanish wins in three days.

“It’s a very Basque Tour de France.” Iziguirre said. “It started at home for us and we took two stage wins. I’m happy to follow the line drawn by Pello Bilbao.”

Yet in the cycling world loyalty to the nation is second to the team. This win is very much a celebration of Cofidis, particularly because it was a rare moment where Cofidis had the numbers, advantage and tactics needed to win in convincing fashion.

While this result came 11 days after Victor Lafay broke the Cofidis drought, confidence and momentum can play a large role for a long time after. To emerge from the melee that was the start of the stage with two riders fighting for victory requires a healthy dose of belief. So, as much as Izagirre may have been following the line of Bilbao, he was also following the footprints of what Lafay achieved last week.

“It's not a secret that Cofidis hasn't won a stage in a long time for a french team there is no race more difficult to win a stage,” Simon Geschke (Cofidis) told The Cycling Podcast after stage 2. “The goal is always to win a stage, but of course you always have a few big teams that win four or five stages each and for the rest of the 18 teams there are only five or six stages left to win.”

“You never expect a stage win at the Tour.