Gran Premio Miguel Indurain: Ion Izagirre wins for second time in career

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Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) distanced Sergio Higuita (Bora-Hansgrohe) on the final climb to win the 2023 Gran Premio Miguel Indurain after the two had distanced their rivals on the Alto de Eraul climb with 10 km to race.

Izagirre hails from nearby Ormaiztegi and so celebrated a local victory near his native Basque Country. He also won the one-day race in 2016.

Higuita finished two seconds behind Izagirre, with Mattias Skjelmose (Trek-Segafredo) third at the same time and Andreas Kron (Lotto-Dstny) fourth at 13 seconds.

The one-day Gran Premio Miguel Indurain celebrates the five-time Tour de France winner who hails from nearby Pamplona. It acts as a warm-up race to the Itzulia Basque Country WorldTour stage race, that begins on Monday in Vitoria-Gasteiz.

EF Education-EasyPost took charge in the final 80 kilometres of the hilly 203km race, riding to set up Richard Carapaz and Esteban Chaves. Their pink jerseys spent long spells on the front on the rolling roads, chasing down the early four-rider attack and trying to distance as many of their rivals as they could before the decisive Alto de Eraul.

The race came back together with 60km to go and stayed together until Nelson Oliveira (Movistar) and Luis León Sánchez (Astana Qazaqstan) attacked and reached the foot of the Alto de Eraul.

They were soon caught and Izagirre made a first attack. When he was caught, Chaves tried to jump away but Izagirre was soon on to him and then attacked again, with Higuita joining. They had a gap over the top of the Alto de Eraul and dived down towards the finish.

On the short but steep Alto Ibarra climb with just two kilometres to go, Izagirre attacked yet again and finally cracked Higuita. He opened enough of a gap for the descent to the finish line, with the Colombian unable to close the gap in the corners.

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