It was the uphill start of the Tour de l’Avenir 2025, an edition that might have the most impressive start list in the race’s history, with many great climbing talents.
Tour de l’Avenir 2025 prologue profile
The prologue was a 3-kilometre uphill time trial to Tignes 1800, starting already at 1561 metres above sea level. This was the first U23 race of Paul Seixas, the 18-year-old French climber who delivered some of the greatest climbing performances ever in junior races last season. Seixas, already with a World Tour contract at Decathlon, unsurprisingly won this prologue with 7.28 ᵉW/kg for 7:19 min; his sea-level power was equivalent to 7.77 ᵉW/kg. The 2024 world junior road race champion Lorenzo Finn matched Seixas, despite crashing hard in the Giro dell’Appennino and recovering quite fast. Austrian Marco Schrettl, in his last U23 year and likely headed to a World Tour team, finished seven seconds behind Seixas and Finn.
Another first-year U23 wonderkid, Mateo Ramirez, after starting the season in a Spanish amateur team but quickly progressing and moving to the UAE development team, was 4th. Ramirez has already performed in Valle d’Aosta and is currently one of the most exciting South American prospects. The more well-known Jarno Widar and Jorgen Nordhagen followed him, with last year’s Colle della Finestre sensation Pablo Torres finishing 9th in the short Tignes prologue with 7.02 ᵉW/kg for 7:33 min.