Il Lombardia: Paul Seixas puts in stunning solo ride to claim first Monument

French prodigy Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) became the youngest winner in Il Lombardia history on Sunday, going solo 18km from the line to take a stunning win to cap an outstanding season.

The 20-year-old had his team working on the front all day, but Seixas himself stayed patient until the crucial moment, putting in one big acceleration on the Civiglio climb that no one could follow for more than a minute or two. From there, despite being chased by some of the strongest riders in the world, the Frenchman could not be reeled back in.

Vuelta a España winner Enric Mas (Movistar) ditched the uncooperative Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) in the finale to try and chase down Seixas solo, but his efforts were futile as the Frenchman soloed to victory by 49 seconds.

Mas settled for second, as Ciccone rolled in a few seconds behind him to cap off his career with Lidl-Trek with a third place.

Pre-race favourite Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) sprinted to fourth from the chase group as an unsatisfactory consolation prize, after being visible and active all day but ultimately not being able to react to the crucial move.

Earlier in the day, a 14-man breakaway was up the road for most of the day, with seven riders surviving into the final 20km, but Seixas' move spelled the end of their day, with Michael Leonard (EF Education-EasyPost) the final rider to be caught.

With his win just two weeks after his 20th birthday, Seixas becomes the youngest-ever winner of Il Lombardia, and the fourth youngest men's Monument victor in history.

"It's crazy. I think I don't realise for now," he said at the finish. "Everything went perfect. The teammates [did a] great, awesome job. Everyone pushed more than what they had to do, and yeah, I had amazing legs.

"I had the feeling that today was a great day, and I managed to make the difference at the moment I chose, maybe a bit earlier, because I felt like the rhythm was not high enough at the start of the climb – for me at least – to make the difference, so I had to accelerate early, maybe a bit too early. There was some not really steep parts, so I had to manage really efforts and accelerate in the hard parts.

"Then I did the best I could, a TT, me against myself and yeah, it was crazy."

He knew he had a decent gap, but said it was "not enough to think about the win before the end of the last climb".

"Then at the end of the last climb I started believing and I just had to not make mistakes on the downhill, so I was careful. I don't realise [what I've done], I think."

An unusual start before business as usual

After the 239km race eventually got underway after the peloton staged a protest about safety by delaying the start, business as usual resumed with the attacks starting straight out of the neutral zone. Martin Marcellusi (Bardiani CSF 7 Saber) was the very first rider to attack, but the day's break wasn't going to get away that easily, and the battle continued all the way up the opening climbs.

An initial group of five got away midway up the Selvino climb, but the fight was continuing behind them with multiple counter-attacks, and the leaders were joined over the top of the ascent to make it a 14-rider break.

The riders were: Ben O'Connor (Jayco AlUla), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious), Michael Leonard (EF Education-EasyPost), Maxime Decomble (Groupama-FDJ United), Johannes Kulset (Uno-X Mobility), Andrea Mifsud (Polti VisitMalta), George Bennett, Pau Marti (NSN), Fausto Masnada (MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort), Gijs Leemreize (Picnic PostNL), Sylvain Moniquet (Cofidis), Louis Vervaeke (Soudal-QuickStep), Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek).

With most big teams represented, the peloton seemed relatively happy to let this break go, and they soon built a gap of two minutes – though they weren't given much more than that as UAE, Red Bull and Decathlon controlled the gap.

Back in the peloton, a mechanical and bike change for world champion Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) saw him dropped from the peloton and facing a substantial chase back on, but he made it back to the bunch and his teammates without too much trouble.

The longest climb of the day, the Valpiana, passed without much action, with the breakaway riders managing their efforts and keeping the gap stable towards the 150km to go mark. On the long descent, however, the breakaway actually managed to grow their advantage over the peloton, stretching the gap out to three minutes for the first time all day as the still 14-strong group took on the long flat before the next climb.

Things were certainly not slow in the peloton heading into the final 120km, but teams and riders seemed to be just making sure they didn't do too much, too soon with the decisive climbs all still to come.

The important climbs begin

It did not take too long for the pace to kick back up in the bunch, though, and the gap started slowly falling again on the Giovenzana climb as UAE lined up at the front of the peloton and started burning through riders.

With 90km to go, the break briefly split apart, and whilst they reunited relatively quickly, it was the first sign of the leaders perhaps getting ready to attack and take opportunities. The long, flat, lake-side stretch before the Madonna del Ghisallo gave the break a chance to reset and regroup, though the peloton were winding up towards full pace in their pursuit.

The break hit the Madonna del Ghisallo 2:30 ahead of the peloton, with the stronger climbers quickly coming to the fore and O'Connor settling the early pace. His efforts saw Tiberi among the first riders to be dropped, and soon hardly anyone could hold onto the Australian's wheel, with him and Leemreize pulling out a gap on the early slopes. Leonard was able to pace back up to them, making it three in the lead, but Leemreize soon dropped back as the leaders' gap fell back below two minutes.

That shrinking of the gap was because, just as had happened in the break, the bunch hitting the climb signalled the arrival of the favourites and climbers at the front of the peloton; no one was quite attacking, but Red Bull and UAE were both battling for supremacy on the front of the group.

O'Connor and Leonard were rejoined by five riders from the break halfway up the climb, but the seven leaders were now less than a minute and a half ahead of the bunch, led by Red Bull's Giulio Pellizzari.

The big attacks start

The attacks began near the top when Louis Barre (Visma-Lease a Bike) led out a big move from Matteo Jorgenson, with his compatriots Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) and McNulty on his wheel, plus XDS Astana's Christian Scaroni. The quartet went clear over the top of the climb, and though they didn't have a huge gap on the peloton, it left Evenepoel, Red Bull and Decathlon with work to do on the descent.

Red Bull enlisted Primož Roglič to help in the chase, and with 50km to go, the attackers – with Masnada from the break now tagging along too – were 13 seconds ahead of the main group, with the leaders another 50 seconds up the road. The attackers were caught only a few kilometres later, though, and there was a brief rest as the favourites weighed up their next moves.

This slight lull saw the leaders' gap go back out, and they still had 1:20 with 35km to go as the race entered the finishing circuit and the final three climbs. After looking strong, Simmons had a poorly timed mechanical at the start of the circuit and dropped out of the reduced bunch and faced a tough chase back on.

All the favourite teams were amassed at the front of the peloton, but there was still a lot of work to be done to actually bring the leaders back if the big names were to contest the finish. On the first time up the San Fermo della Battaglia climb, Pellizzari hit the front once again to wind things up for Evenepoel, with McNulty, Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5), Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Seixas behind them.

Pellizzari paced to the top of the climb, and his efforts took a big chunk out of the leaders' advantage, though they were still working hard up front to try and give themselves as big a chance as possible of holding on. The gap sat at 40 seconds with 20km remaining.

On the Civiglio climb, Leonard pushed on up ahead to be the final survivor of the break, but the favourites were hot on his heels as Paul Seixas made his first serious move towards the top, which reeled Leonard back in but – more crucially – saw Evenepoel struggling to hold on at the back of the group.

Seixas' move was not explosive, but a steady winding up of his speed was an effort that only Pidcock and Ciccone could follow, with Evenepoel and Del Toro noticeably off the pace. It didn't take long for Seixas to drop his companions, too, and the young Frenchman went solo with 18km remaining. He went over the top of the climb with a gap of 25 seconds on Ciccone and Mas, which was not insurmountable, but Seixas looked much stronger than the riders trying to chase him down, and his gap only grew as he settled into his rhythm.

Ciccone and Mas weren't working well together behind, so Mas pushed on solo without the Italian, but even that was fairly futile as he was still nearly a minute down on Seixas with 5km to go. That gap meant the Frenchman was able to savour his victory as he soloed to the line, capping a phenomenal season with an historic first Monument victory.

Mas rolled in for second just ahead of Ciccone, whilst Evenepoel sprinted it out for fourth from the large chasing group, but ultimately could not live up to his favourite status.

Results

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