Why Seixas and Del Toro make the next five years must-watch cycling

It feels as though we’ve already seen what the ceiling looks like. The Tours de France of 2022 and 2023 are the modern reference point: Pogačar and Vingegaard locked in a duel that pushed the race into new territory and reached the most electrifying level sport can produce.

With a difficult 2024 for Vingegaard and an inconsistent Tour in 2025, the last two chapters of their duel were less dramatic. They were far from disappointing, but while Pogačar managed to lift his level dramatically after those his defeats in 2022 and 2023, Vingegaard has not been able to make the same leap in return.

That’s why it will be interesting to see how Vingegaard’s 2026 Giro-Tour double plays out. Is the Giro a box to tick, a way to join the small group of riders who have won all three Grand Tours, or is it a genuine performance strategy designed to bring the 29-year-old Dane to the Tour start with a bigger engine?

With Pogačar (27), there’s one certainty: he’ll keep doing Pogačar things. Right now, there isn’t a single sign that he won’t remain the man to beat. Not at the Tour, not in the Classics with enough climbing to suit him, and not even in most of the others, unless Mathieu van der Poel is on the start line.

Behind the two heavyweights there is, of course, Remco Evenepoel, winner of the 2022 Vuelta a España and third in the 2024 Tour. He is clearly a rider of the very highest class, but also one who has yet to prove he can truly go toe to toe with Vingegaard and Pogačar across three weeks.

Still, Evenepoel (26) shouldn’t be brushed aside. When the stakes are highest, few riders are as willing to put everything on the line to become exactly who they want to be. His move to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, and the investment behind it, makes him one of 2026’s defining storylines, regardless of a slightly underwhelming UAE Tour after a flying start to the Spanish races in January and February.

The thing about an established order is that, after a while, it starts to feel permanent, almost untouchable. But cycling has always shown that established is only ever a temporary condition.

In 1996, hardly anyone doubted that Miguel Indurain would win a sixth Tour de France. In May 2018, you would have been laughed at for suggesting that Chris Froome would not win another Grand Tour. And it will be no different with Pogačar, Vingegaard, and Evenepoel. A time will come when they still shape the race, still influence how it unfolds, but are no longer the ones who define it.

And perhaps that moment will arrive sooner than we think. Because last week’s performances from Isaac del Toro and Paul Seixas were more than results. They were a glimpse of what is coming.

UAE Tour runner up Antonio Tiberi went deep to try to follow Del Toro on Jebel Hafeet, and afterwards he put the Mexican’s talent in perspective.

“Isaac is a great champion, just like Tadej,” he said. “He could become even bigger than Tadej. We all saw what he did last year at the Giro d’Italia, which he almost won. He’s still super young and a real champion, so chapeau to him.”

Becoming bigger than Pogačar is quite a statement. But is it taken out of context? Not at all. At just 22 years of age, Del Toro already has 26 victories to his name. Yes, Pogačar had won the Tour de France by 21, but it is equally important to remember that, with a touch more self-belief, Del Toro could well have claimed the Giro d’Italia at a similar age. What happened on the Colle delle Finestre last year was pure inexperience, a costly lesson in not yet fully understanding the depth of his own abilities.

That lesson still lingers. After his victory on Jebel Hafeet last week, where he rode a remarkably measured climb, starting conservatively before moving through the field, he reflected: “I've never been a leader for the team, so I was very careful with the effort I wanted to manage during the climb.”

Beyond his exceptional engine and searing acceleration, this means that Del Toro possesses something equally powerful: a willingness to learn. It is no coincidence that he has agreed to head to the Tour this year under Pogačar’s wing. At this remove, at least, it seems a contrast to the attitude of his contemporary and former teammate Juan Ayuso, who, in the 2024 Tour squad built around Pogačar, appeared keen to ride on his own terms.

If Tiberi’s comparison sounded bold, Del Toro is starting to make it feel logical. Not because he is already bigger than Pogačar, but because he is learning like someone who intends to be and is sharpening the same weapons as the rider he is chasing.

While Del Toro seized the spotlight in the United Arab Emirates, it was Paul Seixas who stepped firmly to the fore at the Volta ao Algarve. The 19-year-old Frenchman pushed Juan Ayuso in the battle for the general classification and outperformed names such as Oscar Onley, João Almeida and Florian Lipowitz.

The Decathlon CMA CGM rider also claimed his first professional victory on stage 2, at exactly the same place where Tadej Pogačar took his first win in 2019 on the Volta ao Algarve. Yet more than the result itself, it was Seixas’ powerful and attacking style that left the strongest impression, backed up by an eye-catching time trial performance that underlined how complete his skill set already is for a 19-year-old.

As with Del Toro, the compliments of his rivals help to frame the future. Overall winner Juan Ayuso said: “I said it before the race that he was a big rival, already last year, especially in the Europeans at the end of the season, that he’s also going to be one of the greats, and he showed it again.”

Ayuso, just 23 himself, may yet develop into a long-term contender for Grand Tour wins, but first he has to prove that his move to Lidl-Trek will make him more mature and consistent. 

He also appears to lack a touch of Del Toro’s extreme explosiveness, an attribute that is becoming increasingly decisive in winning three-week races in modern cycling. And right now, Seixas arguably looks like the bigger threat to the established order, given the size of the steps he is making at such an exceptionally young age.

For Seixas himself, the biggest threat may not be a rival, but expectation. In France, that weight arrives early. The country has been searching for an heir to Bernard Hinault, the last French winner of the Tour de France in 1985, and every new spark of promise quickly turns into a national projection.

When Richard Virenque collected polka dots in the 1990s, belief surged. Later it was Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot, each asked in slightly different words to end the drought.

Now, inevitably, the question circles around Seixas. The young rider and his team have only presented his spring programme so far, yet in almost every interview the same question surfaces: are you going to the Tour?

It was no different in the Algarve. At first, he brushed it off with a smile, before adding: “At the moment, I don’t know if the Tour de France will be on my schedule. That’s up to the team, not me. So right now, I don’t have an answer.”

It would not be a strange decision if Decathlon opted to send him. For all his promise, no one expects a 19-year-old to defeat Pogačar, Vingegaard or Evenepoel this summer. 

At the Tour, he could grow without the burden of being cast as a contender. At a less stacked Vuelta a España, however, he would much sooner be elevated to outsider status, with the pressure that comes with it.

And a year from now, with bigger results likely behind him, a Tour debut would carry far greater expectations in France than it would today.

So the key question is whether he can absorb the pressure that comes with the expectations.

Belgian teammate Oliver Naesen recently told Het Nieuwsblad that he believes the attention is manageable precisely because it mirrors Seixas’ own ambition. “The expectations from the outside world are also his own expectations, which makes it easier,” he said.

And if the noise does become overwhelming, Naesen believes Seixas already knows how to create some distance. “He’s smart enough to put his phone on airplane mode for an entire week. Because in France they go crazy over every move he makes.”

Stan Dewulf, another teammate, points to something more fundamental: temperament. For him, Seixas’ composure stands out above all. “What I see reassures me. Everything he does radiates calm. He thinks carefully about what he does.”

Hearing those reflections from the people around him, combined with the extraordinary talent he is already displaying, makes it difficult not to believe that Seixas could be the rider who shifts the balance of power.

It is something to look forward to. A unique generation in Pogačar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel will keep pushing each other to the limit, but with Del Toro and Seixas beginning to force their way into the same conversation. And that moment, when untouchability no longer feels permanent, is when the sport may become even better than we thought.