Updated December 25, 2025 12:16AM
The breakout pro cyclists of 2025 won rainbow jerseys, led grand tours, and blew up cobblestone monuments.
From the Merckxian Mexican Isaac del Toro to Canada’s world champion Magdeliene Vallieres, this Gen-Z “Class of 2025” will drive the narrative of pro cycling for many years to come.
Some of the riders on this list seemingly came from nowhere this year. Others were already on the radar but started buzzing a lot brighter.
But whichever way you look at it, these 5 men and 5 women all broke out, big-time.
The top 5 male breakout pro cyclists of 2025
Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), 22
Del Toro didn’t just break out in 2025 – he pretty much blew up world cycling. (Photo: Gruber Images)
Eighteen wins, second in the Giro d’Italia, third in the UCI points rankings.
Isaac del Toro’s second season in the WorldTour was ridiculous.
A 2025 loaded with attacking verve and killer fast-finishing marked “Torito” as the most exciting new talent since the rise of his teammate and buddy Tadej Pogačar.
And don’t go writing off Del Toro as some overhyped scourge of low-key Italian classics. He did win 7 of them in 5 weeks, after all.
The 22-year-old proved he’s the real deal with top-7 finishes at the world championships road race and time trial, and Il Lombardia, too.
Yes, there was that disaster penultimate stage of the Giro d’Italia – Del Toro is far from perfect. But with a little finessing, grand tour and monument victories will be well within his reach.
Paul Seixas (Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale), 19
Seixas is whipping French cycling fans into a frenzy. (Photo: Chris Auld)
It’s hard for a rider to be hyped more than Del Toro, but Paul Seixas might have achieved just that this year.
The supreme teen was hailed the savior of French cycling this summer when he joined the likes of Tadej Pogačar, Egan Bernal, and Del Toro in winning the “Baby Tour de France,” the Tour de L’Avenir.
And Seixas stoked those flames even further in the autumn.
Two weeks after he turned 19, Seixas he third behind Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel at the European championships. One week later at Il Lombardia, he became the youngest rider in 100 years to finish top-10 in a men’s monument.
Ooh la la!
Seixas has the skills to win big. How he handles the expectation from his home fans might be the only thing that can hold him back.
Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL), 23
Onley climbed to Tour de France stardom through the final through the back-half of this year’s race. (Photo: Chris Auld)
Oscar Onley only won once in 2025, but he certainly “broke out.”
The understated Scot barnstormed onto the world stage at the Tour de France with a fourth-place finish that was only one minute short of the podium.
Before that, the 23-year-old scored prestigious top-5 overall finishes at the WorldTour-rated Tour Down Under, UAE Tour, and Tour de Suisse.
Sure, Onley finished 12 minutes back on Tadej Pogačar at the 2025 Tour. He’s not going to be usurping the Slovenian just yet.
But – providing he can maintain his momentum – Onley confirmed himself this year as a potential GC force for the future. His blockbuster move to Ineos Grenadiers in 2026 might put that possibility into fast-forward.
Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike), 20
Brennan wasn’t afraid of hanging with the bigs in his blockbuster breakout season. (Photo: Chris Auld)
Matthew Brennan was once tagged as “the UK’s answer to Wout van Aert.”
He made that moniker stick this year.
Brennan blazed a Wout-shape trail through his debut WorldTour season. With 14 wins for the year, he proved he’s got all the muscling speed to become just as successful as his superstar Belgian teammate.
Brennan’s victory haul made him the fifth-winningest man of the year. OK, only 4 of those were WorldTour, but it’s still one heck of a start.
But perhaps what’s more impressive is what’s not on Brennan’s palmarès.
He took a starring role muscling alongside Van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel, and Mads Pedersen in his first go at Paris-Roubaix. He was a key leadout man for Olav Kooij. And the raw power of his incredible comeback win on stage 1 of the Volta a Catalunya made it one of the finales of the year.
Not bad for a kid not long out of high school.
Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), 25
For Healy, a Tour de France rest day isn’t complete until the pooch has been taken for a stroll. (Photo: Gruber Images)
Sure, Ben Healy isn’t some teenage WorldTour rookie. He’s been lighting up pro cycling for years with his audacious long-range raids and devotion to all things aero.
But this year, the Irish attacker stepped from cult favorite to global fame.
His stage-win, two days wearing yellow, and wholly unforecasted top-10 finish at the Tour de France suggest EF’s pink pirate is much more than a marauding stage-hunter.
And Healy didn’t only have a stunner in the summer.
The 25-year-old was third behind King Pog and Remco at road worlds, and hit the top-5 at Liège-Bastonge-Liège, Strade Bianche, and La Flèche Wallonne.
And some honorable mentions:
Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step), Ivan Romeo (Movistar), Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe), Matyáš Kopecký (Novo Nordisk), Lorenzo Finn (Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe).
The top 5 female breakout pro cyclists of 2025
Kimberley Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal), 29
Le Court isn’t the newest name or youngest rider on the list, but monument victory and days in yellow earn her ‘breakout rider’ status. (Photo: Gruber Images)
Kimberley Le Court is a decade older than some riders on this list, but who cares.
The Mauritian stepped up from niche name to cycling superstardom in 2025.
In spring, Le Court capped the best individual classics campaign in the women’s peloton (top-10s at Alfredo Binda, San Remo, Flanders, and Flèche) with a sensational monument victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
A few months later, “KLCP” wore the yellow jersey for four days and won a stage in a dogged debut ride at the Tour de France Femmes.
Victory in October at the Giro dell’Emilia was the icing on the cake for this new household name of women’s cycling.
Magdeliene Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly), 24
Nobody was expecting Vallieres to win a world title in 2025 – maybe not even the Canadian herself. (Photo: Chris Auld)
If making the second win of your career a world title doesn’t deserve the accolade of “breakout,” nothing will.
Magdeliene Vallieres rocketed into cycling’s conscience and made history as Canada’s first elite road world champion with her audacious breakaway win this September in Kigali.
Looking over Vallieres’ palmarès, her world title might seem an unjust fluke.
The 24-year-old had barely cracked a top-10 since she won the lowly Trofeo Palma last winter, after all.
But Vallieres earned her stripes. She’s one of the most valued domestiques in the Women’s WorldTour, and showed this year in the classics that she’s an attacking threat when she’s given her own chances.
Next year, EF Education-Oatly might let its new world champion off the leash a little more often.
Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ), 23
Nobody could hang with Squiban’s long bombs at the Tour de France Femmes. (Photo: Chris Auld)
French climber Maëva Squiban blew the peloton’s doors off and sent home fans wild with two solo raids in a row at the Tour de France Femmes. Squiban’s back-to-back victories in rugged central France were the perfect peak after she harvested a string of strong results in the spring.
A career-best GC finish later in autumn at the Tour de L’Ardèche continued her momentum into the off-season.
Squiban proved this summer she’s one of the new super-attackers of the Women’s WorldTour.
But she might have a problem next year. After her exploits at the Tour, nobody’s going to be letting her fly solo anymore.
It will be interesting to see how Squiban adapts to her newfound notoriety.
Cat Ferguson (Movistar), 19
Ferguson continued where she left off in her debut WorldTour season after she set the tone last year as a trainee. (Photo: Luc Claessen/Getty Images )
Cat Ferguson proved it wasn’t beginner’s luck. The British speedster continued her meteoric rise from 2024 with a bunch more blockbuster results in 2025.
Then only 18 years old, Ferguson opened her first full WorldTour season with a podium finish at the historic Trofeo Alfreo Binda. She went on to harvest top-10s all through the spring, and bagged the biggest win of her career on home soil at the Tour of Britain in June.
Ferguson is going places, fast.
And now she’s parked her previous ambitions on the track and in cyclocross, she’s got a lot of road to accelerate in to.
Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ), 22
Duathlon, gravel, road: Blasi can do it all. (Photo: DAVID PINTENS/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images)
Paula Blasi became Spanish cycling’s all-terrain queen in 2025, and she’s only just hit the WorldTour.
This year, the 22-year-old was crowned U23 European champion, took the podium at the U23 world champs, and won a stage at the WorldTour-level Tour de Romandie.
Blasi also finished 5th among a pack of specialist off-roaders at “The European Unbound” that is the Traka 200 gravel race.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing? Blasi only turned her full attention to cycling at the start of 2024 after she spent her junior days racing duathlon.
Duathlon’s loss is definitely elite cycling’s gain.
Honorable mentions:
Viktória Chladoňová (Visma-Lease a Bike), Nienke Vinke (Picnic-PostNL), Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek), Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ).