Ion Izagirre is in little doubt that 2016 was the best season of his career to date. A first-ever stage win at the Tour de France was the icing on the cake after an impressive string of results across one-week stage races. So why did he rip up his contract with Movistar to join the nascent Bahrain-Merida team?
"I never planned to change – I had one year left – but Bahrain got in touch saying they were interested, they explained their new project, I liked the look of it, and they showed belief in me,” Izagirre tells Cyclingnews in Croatia, where he is getting together with his teammates for the first time at the team’s first camp.
Unlike other sports, breaking a contract is a rarity in cycling, and at the time of the signing there was no getting away from the suspicion that the move revolved around the Spaniard’s possession of 270 WorldTour points – crucial currency for the three teams fighting over the final two WorldTour licences.
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While team manager Brent Copeland dismissed any suggestion of a points-based recruitment strategy, Izagirre openly acknowledges, without being asked, that his points were indeed a factor – not the be all and end all, but 'part of the package'.
"It’s also true they needed points to be WorldTour, and this year is a year where I’ve earned a fair amount of points," he said, later expanding on the topic when asked if that somehow devalued the move. "At the end of the day that’s the system we have in place. To become WorldTour, you need points, like in football. In football the points aren’t commercialized but in cycling that’s the system we have.
"It’s part of the signing. I also believe they signed me for my year, my qualities, and my future. That’s what I want to think. Aside from that, I know that my points were important, because this year I had a fair amount, and everything came together in one package, let’s say."
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