To be exact, it took him 4:28:57 to win the first two stages of the race, after which he had a lead of 1:59 over Primož Roglič (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), and more than two minutes over his other prominent rivals, Roglič’s teammate Florian Lipowitz, Mattias Skjelmose and Juan Ayuso (both Lidl-Trek), and Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates–XRG).
Early domination
On last Monday’s stage 1, the 19-year-old Decathlon CMA CGN leader simply outclassed the field in a 13.8 km time trial, finishing 23 seconds ahead of another French rider, Kévin Vauquelin (INEOS Grenadiers), with Felix Grossschatner (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) 27 seconds adrift. That may not sound like much of a gap, but in a short ITT like this one, it means domination. Roglič was fourth, Lipowitz was sixth, del Toro was a well-beaten 13th, 51 seconds adrift, and Ayuso finished an inexplicable 38th, at 1:16.
More impressive was Seixas’ performance on the mountainous stage 2, where he attacked 26 km from the finish line, on the final of four categorised climbs, the category 1 San Miguel de Aralar (9.4 km @ 7.9%), soon caught what remained of the day’s breakaway and then soloed all the way to the finish. His margin on a small chase group that included Roglič and Lipowitz was 1:25. Del Toro was caught out by Seixas’ attack and finished 1:43 behind him, while Ayuso simply faded on the climb and came in 2:29 adrift.
“Before the stage started, I had marked this one as a key target,” Seixas said after the stage. “It was the hardest of the week, and we had planned to attack the day after the time trial. The goal was to open up gaps and then manage the race over the long term. I didn’t hesitate to attack. The worst thing is being afraid to go for it. Racing like that is what I love, it’s why I ride.”
After stage 3 Ayuso trailed by an astonishing 3:55. He abandoned the race during stage 4, complaining of a stomach problem and the lingering effects of a crash in Paris-Nice. As for del Toro, he crashed about midway through Wednesday’s stage 3 and, after trying to rejoin the race, also dropped out. As a result, the two riders thought to be the biggest threats to Seixas were no longer in the race. As it turned out, only one rider could still threaten him: Lipowitz.
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Managing or attacking?
Seixas could just have cruised from then on, relying on his team to control the race and riding on the wheel of any rival trying to deprive him of the victory. In other words, managing the race, as he said he had planned. But he is a racer and simply can’t leave “well enough” alone. On stage 4, with a breakaway – but no GC rivals – ahead, he attacked out of the peloton on the descent from the last, and hardest, of seven categorised climbs and tried to make more time on his rivals.
Riding mostly alone, he soared up the uphill finish and, while never threatening the front group, finished 8th, 14 seconds behind the popular winner, the Spaniard Alex Aranburu, the first WorldTour victory of the year for the Cofidis team. Seixas added 15 seconds to his lead over the other GC favourites.
On stage 5, the queen stage, Seixas and Lipowitz broke away from the peloton with 73 km left to ride, with the breakaway more than a minute ahead. Eventually, 27 km from the finish, a three-rider front group formed, consisting of the two plus Javier Romo (Movistar). But at the top of the Izua climb (3.6 km @ 10%), with 27 km left to ride, Romo touched wheels with Lipowitz and crashed. The two then rode on unchallenged to the finish line, where Seixas easily outsprinted the young German to complete his hat trick of stage wins in the race.
An important lesson
Saturday’s final stage was wet and cold and saw Seixas make a youthful error. Riding in a chase group that included Lipowitz, he broke away 53 km from the finish line, on the descent from the category 2 Elosua (6.9 km @ 7.3%), apparently in pursuit of a group containing five Uno-X riders, all trying to put Tobias Halland Johannessen onto the final podium.
“At this moment, I saw I was really strong, and I didn’t want to be in a bad position on a downhill, to have to take risks, so I decided to attack to keep the margin and do the downhill with no risks,” Seixas explained after the race. “My plan was to start the downhill first with a little gap, and then they’d take me back at the end of the downhill. But then that wasn’t the case, and there was a big gap. So at this moment, I was thinking I could jump across to the front, but they were very organized, and I was between two groups. I lost a lot of energy.”
At the start of the stage, Johannessen was down in 11th place and trailed Seixas by 5:39, so there was little danger of his losing the title. But he went anyway and, finding no riders willing or able to collaborate with him, found himself floundering alone. A sports director tried vociferously to have him return to the group he had left, knowing that Lipowitz would ride to protect his second place. But stubborn Seixas rode on before conceding that he’d gone on a fool’s errand, and waited for the Lipowitz group to catch up.
The upshot: The 20-year-old American A.J. August soloed the final 12 km for his first WorldTour victory, Lipowitz finished second in the GC, 2:30 behind Seixas but 3 seconds ahead of Johannessen – and the French teenager learned a lesson that will be valuable whenever he tackles the Tour de France.
“It’s been an insane victory, three stage wins and the overall, we can’t ask for more,” the delighted Seixas told TNT Sports. “We went through some very different conditions this week, very hot and really cold, and I’m just happy to see I was always there and I achieved what I wanted to do.”
Final General Classification 2026 Itzulia Basque Country
- Paul Seixas, Decathlon CMA CGM 20:07:35
2. Florian Lipowitz, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe +2:30
3. Tobias Halland Johannessen, Uno-X Mobility +2:33
4. Ion Izagirre, Cofidis +3:50
5. Clément Champoussin, XDS Astana +4:43
6. Pello Bilbao, Bahrain Victorious +5:03
7. Javier Romo, Movistar +5:05
8. Igor Arrieta, UAE Team Emirates–XRG +5:25
9. Alex Beaudin, EF Education–EasyPost +5:41
10. Kévin Vauquelin, INEOS Grenadiers +7:33
