Paul Seixas wins Il Lombardia solo, aged twenty

Paul Seixas, the Frenchman of Decathlon CMA CGM, won Il Lombardia on 10 October, alone, in 5h49’28”. Spain’s Enric Mas (Movistar) was second at 48”, with Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) third at 1’05”. Seixas is 20 years and 16 days old: nobody had ever won it so young, not even Giovanni Gerbi, who in 1905, at the first edition, was over twenty years and five months old. It is his first Monument, and France had not won Il Lombardia since 2018, with Thibaut Pinot.

The race

From Bergamo to Como it is 239 kilometres and roughly 4,600 metres of climbing. Without Tadej Pogačar, who had won the last five editions, the race had no master, and the first hour was a continual series of attacks. The winning break formed with fourteen riders: Antonio Tiberi, Fausto Masnada, second here in 2021, Ben O’Connor, George Bennett, Victor Campenaerts, Michael Leonard, Sylvain Moniquet, Julien Bernard, Louis Vervaeke and five others. It had around three minutes: behind, UAE, for Isaac Del Toro, and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, for Remco Evenepoel, did the pulling.

On the Ghisallo, 60 kilometres from the finish, the break fell apart and Matteo Jorgenson attacked from the bunch. With him went Quinn Simmons, Brandon McNulty, world champion since 27 September, and Christian Scaroni: they were the fastest on the climb, 19’19” according to the organiser. With 42 kilometres to go Giulio Pellizzari caught them, having pulled the bunch almost single-handedly for Evenepoel. On the first pass of the San Fermo della Battaglia he set the pace again: 6’10”, the best time, with all the favourites on his wheel.

Then the Civiglio, 4.2 kilometres at 9.7%. UAE put Adam Yates at the front, with McNulty and Del Toro on his wheel. Seixas did not attack: he began to go faster, and kept going. McNulty, Del Toro, Tom Pidcock, Ciccone and Mas stayed with him. The first to crack was Evenepoel, then Del Toro and McNulty, then Pidcock. Ciccone was the last to let him go. Before the summit Seixas was alone, and at the top, 16.7 kilometres from the finish, he had 30” on Ciccone and on Mas, who had come back from behind, 46” on Filippo Zana and Pidcock, and 1’10” on the group of Evenepoel, McNulty, Ben Healy, Oscar Onley, Michael Storer and Jarno Widar. Del Toro was in trouble: he finished twenty-eighth at 4’59”.

On the descent Ciccone and Mas took back a few seconds, down to 23”. On the second San Fermo the gap began to grow again, and Mas dropped Ciccone, who was paying for the effort of staying with Seixas. Behind, Evenepoel’s group caught Pidcock and Zana and got to within a dozen seconds of the Abruzzo rider, but Ciccone held on to the podium. Evenepoel won the sprint for fourth place, at 1’20”.

Our sums from this morning

This morning, in “Where to attack at Il Lombardia”, we had done the sums with physics: whoever wants to arrive alone has only one place, the Civiglio, where every percentage point of extra power over the others is worth about seven seconds at the top. We had also written that from the top of the Civiglio to the finish two chasers working together could take back up to 75 seconds. Seixas went there, and the time gained on the climb all stayed: Mas and Ciccone crossed the top at 30” and finished at 48” and 1’05”, Evenepoel’s group went from 1’10” to 1’20”. On the San Fermo Seixas added to it.

The fagIAno, our model, gave Seixas an 11.3% chance of winning before the start: he was the third favourite, behind Evenepoel (39.2%) and Del Toro (19.8%). The fagIAno’s probabilities are on the race page.

What it means

For Seixas it is the seventh win of 2026, after La Flèche Wallonne in the spring. Since 2015, in the editions finishing in Como, the winner has arrived alone seven times out of eight. For the first time since 2020 Il Lombardia was not won by Pogačar.

Ciccone returns to the podium of Il Lombardia two years after his third place in 2024, in his last race with Lidl-Trek. At the start he had told the organiser that this is “a special race, I’d say my favourite”. Among the top ten there are three Italians: with him Scaroni was eighth and Zana ninth, both at 1’20”. The last Italian to win Il Lombardia remains Vincenzo Nibali, in 2017. Pello Bilbao, seventh, ended his career here.

How they finished

The top ten

#	Rider	Team	Time
1	Paul Seixas	Decathlon CMA CGM Team	5h49’28”
2	Enric Mas	Movistar Team	+48″
3	Giulio Ciccone	Lidl-Trek	+1’05”
4	Remco Evenepoel	Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe	+1’20”
5	Brandon McNulty	UAE Team Emirates XRG	+1’20”
6	Tom Pidcock	Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team	+1’20”
7	Pello Bilbao	Bahrain Victorious	+1’20”
8	Christian Scaroni	XDS Astana Team	+1’20”
9	Filippo Zana	Soudal Quick-Step	+1’20”
10	Mathys Rondel	Tudor Pro Cycling Team	+1’20”

News written with the help of Mnemosyne.

Sources

• Results, times and notes on the race: RCS Sport, “Il Lombardia, results”.
• Weather: Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).
• Photo: Kakoula10, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.