{"id":589519,"date":"2026-04-08T04:42:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/589519\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T04:42:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:42:45","slug":"teen-phenom-seixas-blows-up-itzulia-with-sensational-solo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/589519\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen Phenom Seixas Blows up Itzulia with Sensational Solo"},"content":{"rendered":"

19-year-old Paul Seixas uncorks Poga\u010dar-esque solo raid at Itzulia to build mammoth GC lead over a bunch of seasoned climbers.<\/p>\n

\"Seixas\"<\/p>\n

(Photo: ANDER GILLENEA \/ AFP via Getty Images))<\/p>\n

Updated April 7, 2026 10:24AM<\/p>\n

Paul Seixas<\/a> obliterated Monday\u2019s climbing TT at Itzulia Basque Country, and it seems like he was only getting started.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old phenom backed up Monday\u2019s brutal display of aero power<\/a> by blowing away all his rivals (again) on Tuesday\u2019s vert-loaded mountain stage through the Basque steeps.<\/p>\n

The French wonderkid attacked on the merciless slopes of the penultimate climb at 27km to go, and never looked back.<\/p>\n

Seasoned GC racers Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d, Florian Lipowitz, Juan Ayuso, and fellow young gun Isaac del Toro<\/a> were left choking on exhaust in a sensational display straight from the Poga\u010dar playbook.<\/p>\n

Seixas gained close to one minute of a lead over the summit of the merciless cat.1 ascent, plowed through the breakaway, and railed the downhill.<\/p>\n

He delivered a final coup de gras by driving the wedge further on the final grind to the finish line in Cuevas de Mendukilo.<\/p>\n

Seixas pushed to the line nearly 90 seconds ahead of a pack of GC wannabes who already appear out of range of victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the plan today,\u201d Seixas revealed at the finish. \u201cIt was maybe a bit ambitious to attack so early, maybe I attacked earlier than what I wanted, but I felt it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter two or three minutes I was regretting it, but by then I had no choice, so I pushed on until the finish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Seixas sets pulses racing through France
\n\"SeixasSeixas has been touted the savior of French cycling, and he\u2019s delivering on the hype. (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty Images))<\/p>\n

Seixas is now 1:59 ahead of next-best Rogli\u010d on GC, and even further ahead in front of potential. Nobody would question this new superstar winning a third and fourth stage before the 6-day race is done.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, pre-race favorites Del Toro and Ayuso suffered further damaging losses while Seixas ran riot a second day in a row.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar\u2019s sidekick at UAE, Del Toro, is now close to three minutes down on GC, while Ayuso\u2019s race went even further off the tracks after his terrible opening time trial. Lidl-Trek\u2019s new centerpiece hemorrhaged time in the finale Tuesday and is four minutes away from Seixas\u2019 leader\u2019s jersey.<\/p>\n

Seixas rolled out the \u201cnot over \u2019til it\u2019s over\u201d line in his winner\u2019s interview Tuesday, but his superiority is clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe overall isn\u2019t finished, it\u2019s never over til the last day,\u201d he said. \u201cBut now I\u2019m sure I have the level to win here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have the gap and now we\u2019re going to manage that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seixas\u2019 recent meteoric rise has lit a flame under the French press.<\/p>\n

National sports daily L\u2019Equipe gushed close to a dozen stories of praise Tuesday morning after its cycling darling delivered his monster time trial Monday.<\/p>\n

He will need his own full-color supplement Wednesday morning after this huge solo.<\/p>\n

And the hype is well-deserved.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old might be going interstellar.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s got the full backing of newly monied superteam Decathlon CMA-CGM, watts to rival the world elite, and the racing savvy to stitch it all together.<\/p>\n

Itzulia Basque Country stage 2 results:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"19-year-old Paul Seixas uncorks Poga\u010dar-esque solo raid at Itzulia to build mammoth GC lead over a bunch of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,54263,82,116156,224643,90610,54267],"class_list":{"0":"post-589519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-parent_category-road","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tag-decathlon-ag2r-la-mondiale","14":"tag-tag-itzulia-basque-country","15":"tag-tag-paul-seixas","16":"tag-type-article"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589519","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=589519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}