Il Lombardia has a new youngest winner, and to find the previous one you have to go back to the first edition. On 10 October in Como, Paul Seixas, a Frenchman from Lyon, won at twenty years and sixteen days. The record he broke belonged to Giovanni Gerbi, from Asti, who on 12 November 1905 won the first Lombardia at twenty years and five months: alone, after two hundred kilometres off the front in the mud.
Seixas beat Enric Mas by 48 seconds. Gerbi reached Milan 40′11″01 ahead of Giovanni Rossignoli and 40′46″ ahead of Luigi Ganna, the same Ganna who four years later would win the first Giro d’Italia.
Milano-Milano
The race was the idea of Tullo Morgagni, a journalist at La Gazzetta dello Sport: he wanted to give Pierino Albini a rematch against Giovanni Cuniolo, who had beaten him in the Coppa del Re. Some sources say it was called Milano-Milano and took the name Giro di Lombardia in 1907; for the Gazzetta it was the Giro di Lombardia from 1905. It covered 230.5 km from Milan back to Milan, through Lodi, Bergamo, Lecco, Como and Varese, on dirt roads. The morning was cold and foggy, then the rain came, and the mud pushed the riders onto the grass verges. At the finish there were 12 of 5502.
Gerbi had ridden the course before the race. About thirty kilometres in, near Lodi, tram rails crossed the road: riders arriving at speed on the outside caught their wheels in them, and part of the bunch went down. Gerbi slowed, went through the middle and rode away. Only Battista Parini went with him, and he could not hold the pace and abandoned. At Crema Gerbi led by 4 minutes, at Bergamo by 18, at Lecco by 22, at Como by 27. Giovanni Cuniolo, who had been chasing him, stopped exhausted at Como.
Twenty years and five months
Gerbi’s date of birth is uncertain: 20 May or 4 June 1885. On the day of the first Lombardia he was therefore twenty years and 176 days old, or 161.
Seixas was 20 years, 16 days03: the record is his by about 5 months. In 2025 he had finished seventh. After the two of them, on the list of the youngest, nobody has won before turning 21.
| Rider | Year | Age on race day |
|---|---|---|
| Paul Seixas | 2026 | 20 years, 16 days |
| Giovanni Gerbi | 1905 | 20 years, 161-176 days |
| Jean-Pierre Monseré | 1969 | 21 years, 33 days |
| Vito Taccone | 1961 | 21 years, 168 days |
| Cesare Brambilla | 1906 | 21 years, 192 days |
The Red Devil
Gerbi raced in a red jersey, and they called him the Red Devil. There is a legend about where the nickname came from, often told and impossible to verify: during a breakaway he is said to have ridden through a religious procession, and the parish priest, watching him pass, to have asked in Piedmontese who that devil was.
The year before the first Lombardia he had gone to the Tour de France, and on the second stage, on the Col de la République, he was attacked by a group of spectators and abandoned. His most disputed Lombardia was the 1907 edition: he won it on the road, but the jury placed him last. His supporters had closed a level crossing and scattered nails in front of the chasers, and he had sheltered in the slipstream of motorcycles. The win went to Gustave Garrigou; the Italian federation, the Unione Velocipedistica Italiana, suspended Gerbi for two years, later reduced to six months.
On 10 October Seixas covered 239 km at an average of 41 km/h; in 1905 Gerbi covered 230.5 at 24.97. After 121 years the age record has changed hands. The margin over second place has not: Gerbi’s was fifty times bigger.
Sources
- Wikipedia (it), Giro di Lombardia 1905: date, route, starters and finishers, result, average speed.
- Wikipedia (en), 1905 Giro di Lombardia and Wikipedia (fr), Tour de Lombardie 1905: result and gaps.
- Wikipedia (en), Giro di Lombardia: Tullo Morgagni, Albini’s rematch, Milano-Milano and the name from 1907.
- La Gazzetta dello Sport, Storia del Giro di Lombardia: Albini’s rematch against Cuniolo after the Coppa del Re, the name Giro di Lombardia from 1905.
- BikeRaceInfo, 1905 Giro di Lombardia: starters and finishers, distance, time, average speed and gaps.
- Wikipedia (it), Giovanni Gerbi, Wikipedia (en) and Wikipedia (fr): birth dates, nickname and legend, the 1904 Tour, the 1907 Lombardia and the suspension.
- Il Lombardia, official website: The classic of the falling leaves: Gerbi’s age, 20 years, 5 months and 8 days.
- CyclingRevealed, 1st Giro di Lombardia 1905: weather, the course ridden beforehand, the crash on the tram rails, Parini, the gaps at Crema, Bergamo, Lecco and Como.
- Domestique Cycling, Il Lombardia records: the youngest winners.
- Wikipedia (it), Giro di Lombardia 1961: the date of Taccone’s win.
- Wikipedia (it), Luigi Ganna: the first Giro d’Italia, 1909.
- Wikipedia (it), Paul Seixas: born in Lyon, Il Lombardia 2025 and 2026.
- UCI, official results of Il Lombardia 2025 and 2026 and Seixas’s date of birth, in the fagIAnata archive.
- Wikidata (CC0), roll of honour and winners’ birth dates, in the fagIAnata archive.
Written with the help of Mnemosyne.