Paul Seixas Takes Il Lombardia at 20 with a Record Civiglio Climb

Paul Seixas turned Il Lombardia into a statement ride: at 20 years and 16 days old, he became the youngest winner in the Monument’s history, dating back to its first edition in 1905. The Decathlon CMA CGM rider built his victory with a sustained attack on the Civiglio, then held off the chase for a 48-second win in Como.

The 239 km race from Bergamo to Como had been fast and tactical, with the leading contenders together as they reached the penultimate climb. Seixas moved to the front on the 4.2 km Civiglio, which averages 9.7%, and raised the pace in stages. Remco Evenepoel, Tom Pidcock, Isaac del Toro and world road race champion Brandon McNulty could not hold his wheel.

There was no single explosive acceleration. Seixas applied pressure until the others began to slip away, while Giulio Ciccone was the only rider to stay in pursuit for a time. Seixas later said he thought the pace at the foot of the climb was too low for him to make a difference, so he accelerated early. On the less steep sections he measured his effort, then pushed harder on the steepest stretches.

That climb became a measure of the performance: Seixas beat Tadej Pogačar’s Civiglio time by 38 seconds, averaging 20.8 km/h on the ascent. His advantage over the chasers shifted during the run-in but kept growing. He said he had heard his lead was around 30 or 40 seconds, yet didn’t consider the race won before the final climb. On the descent, he focused on avoiding mistakes.

Mas wins the chase

Behind Seixas, Ciccone’s pursuit ended when Enric Mas passed him with 6 km remaining. The Movistar rider finished second, 48 seconds back; Ciccone took third at 1:05. Evenepoel won the sprint from the next group for fourth, 1:20 behind. McNulty, Pidcock, Pello Bilbao, Christian Scaroni and Filippo Zana also finished at that time.

Del Toro, a pre-race co-favourite, finished 28th, nearly five minutes down. After the World Championships, the Mexican had cited jet lag and knee problems. Seixas, by contrast, said his legs felt exceptional and credited teammates who had worked beyond what he expected of them. “Everything went perfect,” he told TNT Sports, adding that the victory still felt unreal.

His account of the attack was measured: he described pacing the easier sections and going all out on the hard ones, then riding the final stretch as a time trial against himself. The result was a first Monument win earned through control as much as force.

A new ambition, and a long season

Seixas’s confidence before the start was a change from his self-criticism after the World Championships. Then, he had said he was disappointed in his own performance and felt he had let down his team and France. Before Lombardia, he appeared upbeat; after the finish, he spoke with pride about a ride he was still processing.

Asked about Pogačar in a post-race press conference, Seixas said he hopes to compete with the Slovenian one day. He called that a dream he is working toward, while acknowledging he may never beat him. For now, the Lombardia result gives that ambition a landmark of its own.

Evenepoel praised the winner’s sustained pace, calling the victory deserved, but said fourth wasn’t the result his team had come for. He pointed to an uneven season since June and said he hadn’t recovered his top form after the Tour. Pidcock offered a shorter explanation: he had made an effort to move forward, then followed Seixas too deep into the red and paid for it.

Riders call for safer racing

The race began with a five-minute rider protest calling for better protection from vehicles. Several riders had been struck by cars during races that year. The source also reports that 19-year-old Fin Tarling died after being hit by a non-race vehicle while pursuing the peloton at the Volta a Portugal.

Before the start, Evenepoel told spectators that organisers needed to make racing safer, citing incidents involving motorcycles and cars entering the course. Pidcock and Adam Hansen, president of the riders’ union CPA, shared a statement describing multiple vehicle incidents that week. Two riders had crashed after hitting a motorcycle travelling the wrong way and escaped with cuts and scrapes, the statement said. It also connected those incidents to Tarling’s death and called for change.

For Seixas, the decisive evidence came on the road: an early, carefully paced move on the Civiglio, a record ascent and a controlled ride to Como. The result puts his Monument win on the record books at 20 years and 16 days.

2026 Il Lombardia results

Bergamo to Como, 239 km.