{"id":586174,"date":"2026-04-06T16:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T16:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586174\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T16:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T16:26:13","slug":"french-teenager-paul-seixas-wins-itzulia-basque-country-opening-time-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586174\/","title":{"rendered":"French teenager Paul Seixas wins Itzulia Basque Country opening time trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a big moment for French 19 year old Paul Seixas\u2019s career, the Decathlon-CMA-CGN rider winning Monday\u2019s opening time trial of the 65th Itzulia Basque Country, his third win and first WorldTour victory. Canadian Michael Leonard placed 10th, beating the likes of Juan Ayuso and Isaac del Toro. <\/p>\n

Preliminaries<\/p>\n

Last year, Jo\u00e3o Almeida beat Enric Mas and Max Schachman for the title. None of the three were back, but del Toro, 2024 winner Ayuso, Florian Lipowitz, two-time champion Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d and French wunderkind Seixas were ready to scrap for the winner\u2019s txapela. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Almeida on his way to a 2025 stage victory in the leader\u2019s jersey.<\/p>\n

Hugo Houle was starting his first stage race for new squad Alpecin-Premier Tech. EF Education-Easypost\u2019s Michael Leonard was in his fourth stage race of the season.<\/p>\n

The Course<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s 13.8-km time trial started with a serious climb right from the start house in Bilbao. After 2.4-km, 7 percent Alto de Santo Domingo, the route was downhill until the final 400 metres when it tipped sharply to the sky once more. The intermediate times were taken at the top of Santo Domingo and at the 4.7-km mark.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Not a lot of flat in this one, folks. Image by La FlammeRouge<\/p>\n

Hugo Houle posted 18:50 in his 105th time trial. Rogli\u010d was an early roller too, and sailed in with 17:47 to sit a spell on the hot seat. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Roglic posting the early best time.<\/p>\n

Seixas was on fire, the Frenchman stopping the clock at 17:09 after setting the best times at both intermediate points. Lipowitz powered to provisional third place. Michael Leonard had a fine ride with 17:55. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Canadian chrono champ Michael Leonard posted 17:55.<\/p>\n

After crashing out of Paris-Nice while wearing yellow, how would Ayuso fare? Well, he recorded the 41st fastest time at the first intermediate check point.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Aysuo in the Bilbao start house.<\/p>\n

Del Toro wasn\u2019t exactly killing it at the same check point, +0:14 off Seixas. He came 13th, +0:51.<\/p>\n

For a Spanish stage race with so many mountains, the Itzulia Basque Country is short on actual summit finishes. Tuesday\u2019s stage is more like an uphill finish soon after a Cat. 1.<\/p>\n

65th Itzulia Basque Country, Stage 1
1) Paul Seixas (France\/Decathlon-CMA-CGM) 17:09
2) Kevin Vauquelin (France\/Ineos) +0:23
3) Felix Grossschartner (Austria\/UAE-Emirates) +0:27
10) Michael Leonard (Canada\/EF Education-Easypost) +0:46
69) Hugo Houle (Canada\/Alpecin-Premier Tech) +1:41<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a big moment for French 19 year old Paul Seixas\u2019s career, the Decathlon-CMA-CGN rider winning Monday\u2019s opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[223817,78767,49,48,635,75501,75504,141519,82,11588],"class_list":{"0":"post-586174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-2026-itzulia-basque-country","9":"tag-2026-uci-worldtour","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-cycling","13":"tag-hugo-houle","14":"tag-michael-leonard","15":"tag-paul-seixas","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-spotlight"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}