'It helps you to move on' - Seixas parks Worlds frustration with Lombardia in view

Two weeks on from his disappointment at the World Championships in Montreal, Paul Seixas returns to the fray for his final outing of the season at Il Lombardia, where he lines up among the top tier of favourites.

By any metric, his season has already been a resounding success. Victories at Flèche Wallonne and Itzulia Basque Country preceded a consistent fourth place overall at his debut Tour de France, and all while still a teenager.

But despite that clear and steep upward trajectory, Seixas was lacerating in his self-criticism in the immediate aftermath of the Montreal Worlds, where he placed 15th after cramping up on the final lap of a tumultuous road race. “Shameful,” was his verdict when he stopped in the mixed zone.

A fortnight later, Seixas is still uncertain of the precise cause of his late collapse in Canada – “Perhaps it was a hydration issue,” – he said – but he shook off the idea that he had been too hard on himself when he stopped in the mixed zone at the Lombardia team presentation in Bergamo on Friday evening.

“I think sometimes it’s about letting the frustration out, and if you don’t let it out, it builds up inside you,” Seixas said. “And that helps you to move on too. Sometimes I take things a bit to heart, but then I think about them, and after a while you’ve got to move on. It helps me as well.”

It helps, of course, that Seixas has an immediate chance to notch up the first Monument victory of his precocious career. As a neo-pro last year, the Decathlon CMA CGM rider took seventh in Il Lombardia, while he underscored his preternatural ability at Monument distance by running Tadej Pogacar closer than anyone at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, taking second behind the Slovenian.

Pogacar’s absence through injury guarantees that Il Lombardia will have a new winner for the first time since 2020 and it should produce a more open race than the processions of the past five years. 

“I don’t think there’s any Monument that’s easy to win – I mean, I’m actually quite sure of that – but I think it’s between Liège and Lombardia as the one that suits me best,” Seixas said. “The routes are more or less the same, so to speak, in terms of suiting my strengths. 

“I perform well on the repeated efforts at Liège, but the longer climbs at Il Lombardia suit me too. Once the effort lasts four or five minutes or more, I think it all suits me.”

This intriguing edition of Il Lombardia boasts a wide array of contenders, including the on-form trio of Americans, Brandon McNulty, Quinn Simmons and Matteo Jorgenson, as well as Tom Pidcock. 

But Seixas will set off from Bergamo bracketed alongside Remco Evenepoel and Isaac del Toro as the men most likely to succeed Pogacar on the roll of honour. All three riders will also have designs on eventually taking the mantle from the Slovenian across the calendar, but that’s a monumental challenge of a different kind.

In the here and now, and in Pogacar’s absence, Seixas knows he has a chance at becoming the youngest Monument winner since 1944. 

“I’m not afraid to say it: I’m setting my sights high,” Seixas said. “I’m feeling really good, and I’m not afraid to say that I could be in the running for victory. It would be a pity not to go in with those ambitions. I feel good, and I’m not afraid to say so.”