<\/div>\n
Believe it or not, but the Tadej Poga\u010dar era will eventually end.<\/p>\n
\n
And when it does, it\u2019s Paul Seixas and Isaac del Toro who will battle to be crowned king of a TikTok peloton that starts grand tours and classics, and wins both.<\/p>\n
The rise of Seixas and Del Toro in the past 12 months has rivaled the Artemis space rocket in terms of power and intensity.<\/p>\n
After a blitz of grand tour near-misses, monument breakouts, and a shared podium at Strade Bianche, the 19-year-old French phenom and the Mercxian 22-year-old Mexican are hailed as those most likely to be the next \u201cnew\u201d Tour de France winner.<\/p>\n
And while these Gen-Zs aren\u2019t \u201crivals\u201d yet, it feels inevitable that their relationship will ripen.<\/p>\n
When Poga\u010dar vs. Vingegaard is retired and washed-out, Seixas vs. Del Toro will be next.<\/p>\n
(Because c\u2019mon Remco, you know you\u2019re a classics rider, really.<\/em>)<\/p>\n The Itzulia Basque Country this week will give us a preview of this duel that will define the post-Poga\u010dar peloton.<\/p>\n Paul Seixas flies into the provisional lead at Itzulia \ud83e\udee8<\/p>\n The young Frenchman almost sprints up the final climb in Bilbao \ud83d\ude4c pic.twitter.com\/s37ZUV01jS<\/p>\n \u2014 Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) April 6, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n And after just 14km of racing, Seixas is in control and wearing the leader\u2019s jersey.<\/p>\n The 19-year-old delivered a performance that would have done Pogi proud in Monday\u2019s hilly TT. He rocketed to the line 23 seconds faster than next-best K\u00e9vin Vauquelin and drove a wedge into his key rivals.<\/p>\n Del Toro finished 50 seconds back, while pre-race favorite Juan Ayuso hemorrhaged more than a minute in an uncharacteristically error-prone ride.<\/p>\n Check the full results at the bottom of this post.<\/em><\/p>\n From Monday through Saturday, baby-faced Del Toro, Seixas, Ayuso, and Florian Lipowitz take on grizzled warhorses Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d and Mikel Landa in one of the cruelest stage races in the calendar.<\/p>\n After the short opening time trial on Monday, the next five stages across the green Basque hills are uncompromising and steep.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no marquee summit finish, but every stage amasses more than 2,800 meters of ascent in a tour that looks like a six-day Ardennes classic.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a race for a sport where boundaries have become blurred between rider \u201ctypes,\u201d and phenoms like Poga\u010dar and Evenepoel drive the narratives.<\/p>\n Itzulia Basque Country won\u2019t be some two-horse race.<\/p>\n Far from it.<\/p>\n Rogli\u010d and Ayuso won here before, Vauquelin is already a threat, and such a spicy route means nothing is a formality.<\/p>\n But Del Toro vs. Seixas should command the attention of those hoping to see into the future.<\/p>\n Until now, they\u2019ve raced together only four times, and never at a stage race.<\/p>\n That those four clashes were the Rwanda world championships road race and TT, Il Lombardia, and Strade Bianche speaks volumes about their potential. That they never placed outside the top-16 says even more.<\/p>\n UAE Emirates XRG will expect Del Toro to deliver the Basque Country\u2019s Txapela<\/em> trophy hat this week.<\/p>\n Torito<\/em> already won both UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico this season without breaking too much of a sweat.<\/p>\n Another stage-race victory this week would put him on a Poga\u010dar-esque clean streak for 2026.<\/p>\n It would also reconfirm the fact that IDT could share the podium with Poga\u010dar when they link up at the Tour de France this July.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Seixas and his Decathlon CMA-CGM entourage claim that Itzulia is primarily a stepping stone to the Ardennes classics. After standing up to Pogi on the sterrato of Tuscany in March, the 19-year-old is so sure of himself he hopes to slay the Slovenian in Li\u00e8ge.<\/p>\n But the secret truth is that Itzulia will also prove decisive in whether Seixas makes his grand tour debut this summer in the crucible of Le Tour<\/em>.<\/p>\n The French nation has otherworldly hopes for its \u201cNew Messiah\u201d after he finished between Poga\u010dar and Del Toro at Strade Bianche last month.<\/p>\n Seixas\u2019 imperious stage-win Monday certainly won\u2019t quell that fire.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/fight-pogacar-crown-itzulia-seixas-del-toro\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/next-in-line.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated April 6, 2026 10:34AM Believe it or not, but the Tadej Poga\u010dar era will eventually end. And when it does, it\u2019s Paul Seixas and Isaac del Toro who will battle to be crowned king of a TikTok peloton that starts grand tours and classics, and wins both. The rise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1868708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1868708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1868708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1868708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1868708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Gen-Zs vs the Old Guard at Itzulia Basque Country<\/h2>\n
![\"Seixas](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2269489557.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
First stage-race clash between the princes of peloton<\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2264673662-1200x800.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Itzulia Basque Country stage 1 results:<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n