Sensational Seixas storms to historic solo victory at Il Lombardia

Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) produced a historic performance on Saturday, soloing to an emphatic victory in Como to become the youngest-ever winner of Il Lombardia. 

The race ignited on the Civiglio ascent with 19km remaining as Seixas launched an initial acceleration which stretched out the contenders' group and saw Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) start to be distanced. 

Seixas continued to up the pace with only Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) able to follow before both had to lose the wheel of the Frenchman with 18.3km remaining. 

Continuing to press on the pedals until the top of the climb, Seixas managed to extend his advantage to 30 seconds over Ciccone and Enric Mas (Movistar), with Pidcock and Filippo Zana (Soudal Quick-Step) a further 15 seconds back. 

While Ciccone and Mas didn’t give up on the chase, Seixas managed to safely navigate the Civiglio descent and extend his advantage on the second ascent of the San Fermo della Battaglia. 

Mas managed to distance Ciccone on the final ascent of San Fermo della Battaglia in the race for second, leaving the Italian with a tough challenge to hold off a swelled chasing pack for third. 

In the end, Seixas had more than enough time to take in and savour his historic achievement, with his winning margin being 48 seconds over Mas, while Ciccone managed to hold on for third at 1:05 in his final race for Lidl-Trek. Evenepoel won the group sprint for fourth.

With Tadej Pogačar having claimed five successive victories from 2021 to 2025, Seixas became the first different winner of Il Lombardia since Bauke Mollema in 2019, who marked his final race before retirement on Saturday. 

Additionally, the 20-year-old surpassed Giovanni Gerbi as the youngest winner of the race of the falling leaves, a record which had stood since the inaugural edition in 1905. 

Evenepoel acted as the spokesperson for the peloton ahead of Il Lombardia, where the riders opted to delay the start of the race by five minutes to draw attention to severe lapses in safety standards in the aftermath of the tragic death of Finlay Tarling.

Once the action got underway, a 15-rider breakaway would form featuring: George Bennett and Pau Martí (NSN), Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek), Victor Campenaerts (Visma | Lease a Bike), Maxime Decomble (Groupama FDJ United), Johannes Kulset (Uno-X Mobility), Gijs Leemreize (Picnic PostNL), Michael Leonard (EF Education-EasyPost), Fausto Masnada (MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort), Andrea Mifsud (Polti VisitMalta), Sylvain Moniquet (Cofidis), Ben O’Connor (Jayco AlUla), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious) and Louis Vervaeke (Soudal Quick-Step). 

On the climb to Giovenzana with 105km remaining, O’Connor started to put the squeeze on in the breakaway, as 2:35 behind in the peloton, the favourites' teams swarmed to the front of the peloton with UAE leading the charge.

While the breakaway didn’t split on this climb, O’Connor managed to create separation at the foot of the Madonna del Ghisallo with 68km remaining. The Australian launched a move which only Leemreize could initially follow, before Leonard bridged across. 

Leemreize found himself distanced a couple of kilometres later, as behind in the peloton Juan Felipe Rodríguez (EF Education-EasyPost) upped the tempo at the head of the peloton, which whittled the group in size. 

Leonard and O’Connor were reeled in with 65km to go by a chasing group from within the breakaway that included Bernard, Bennett, Masnada, Moniquet, and Vervaeke. 

After Rodriguez finished his effort at the head of the peloton, Pellizzari took over at the front, with Evenepoel and the rest of the favourites locked onto the Italian’s wheel.

The first attack from the peloton came with 61.5km remaining, with Louis Barré (Visma | Lease a Bike) setting up a move for Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) who brought his compatriots Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) and World champion Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) along with him as well as Christian Scaroni (XDS Astana). 

The chasing quartet reached the summit with 59km remaining, just 45 seconds behind the head of the race, and with an advantage of around 10 seconds over the rest of the peloton. They were caught by the peloton with 44km remaining, while the breakaway still held around 45 seconds of a lead. 

The breakaway managed to extend their advantage back towards 1:30 as they hit the San Fermo della Battaglia with 30km to go. 

Once more, Pellizzari squeezed the pace at the front of the peloton on the climb, which reduced the breakaway's advantage to around 45 seconds at the summit.

Through the finish line for the first time with 22km remaining, the breakaway held an advantage of 48 seconds over the Pellizzari-led peloton of around 25 riders.

Visma and UAE swarmed to the front of the peloton at the foot of the Civiglio climb with 20km remaining, as Leonard pushed clear of his breakaway companions. 

However, unfortunately for the Canadian, Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) set a strong pace at the front of the peloton, before Seixas launched the first acceleration with 19.2km remaining. 

It wasn't a cold-blooded attack from Seixas, but notably, Evenepoel started to be distanced. Seixas continued to ramp up the pace, and only Pidcock and Ciccone could follow. 

By the summit, Seixas led by 25 seconds over Ciccone and Mas, with Pidcock and Zana not too far behind. 

At the foot of the final San Fermo della Battaglia ascent, Seixas had stretched his advantage over Ciccone and Mas to around 40 seconds, while a larger chase group was a further 20 seconds back. 

With the provisional podium positions up the road, Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) attacked from the second chasing pack, as Mas distanced Ciccone up front. 

However, Mas was racing for second as Seixas was in a league of his own up front and on his way to creating history.