Itzulia Basque Country 2026, April 6-11

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Aug 29, 2009
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Final climb today, 10k from the finish:

AsentzioBergara.gif

Everything else comes with 40k+ to go, and quite a long valley in between.
 
Apr 8, 2023
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14C and rain showers all day so young Seixas will have to have his wits about him. With over 2 minutes lead he can afford to be careful.
(Would be interesting to know the TV viewers number in France compared to last year. )
 
Jan 27, 2012
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Well for the last five yrs his results in Itzulia, good or bad, have not meant any remarkable success in the Tour whatsoever..
yep, Ion will likely be irrelevant in the tour, instead he should go all in at San Sebastian Klasikoa and target a relevant stage at the Vuelta for the ultimate farewell to procycling.
 
Apr 8, 2023
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yep, Ion will likely be irrelevant in the tour, instead he should go all in at San Sebastian Klasikoa and target a relevant stage at the Vuelta for the ultimate farewell to procycling.
For a 37 year old it's not a bad current performance, but it also shows the state of the opposition. Yep, feet up in July and an end of season blitz on the Vuelta etc.
 
Feb 20, 2026
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No I didn't.

I'm mostly talking about arguments he's already good enough to challenge for the top 2. And all the W/kg people that will ignore a tailwind and perfect pacing certainly didn't help.

Right now I think he makes a clear case for 3rd best in certain stages, but I do think the caveat if he can do it in GTs applies a bit more to him than for other riders because this is the 2nd stage race in a row where he looks stronger early in the race than later in the race.
No RR. I don't think you are right in one thing. Certainly, there is a chance he was helped by a strong tailwind and a perfect leadout, however there is the time gap to other rivals and what he did in Pais Vasco (both stages 1 and 2) and Faun Ardenne Classic is something we never saw anyone doing, except Vingegaard, Pogacar and Remco. Since I believe Remco is cooked as a GT rider (I don't think he is stronger than Lipo these days), he is definitely the favorite to be third in July. We also need to look Vingegaard's performances in the Vuelta and I don't think he will be stronger in the TdF like Pogacar in 2024. So there are 3 reason that give Seixas a chance of getting a 2nd place (even if it's a small chance):

1 - Vingegaard doing the Giro before
2 - Seixas is improving and rising like a rocket
3 - he has been dominating races like Vingegaard (I'm sure he will do it again in the Dauphiné)

Is he very young? Yes. He lacks experience? Yes. Has he been weaker later in the race compared to eaely stages? Yes, however we should not forget he still has the race controlled, Lipo wasn't close to drop him (the same in Algarve with Ayuso. The typical "early peaker").
There is also the agressive way he has been racing in Pais Vasco. His performance dropprd just like Pogacar was almost dropped in Montjuic 2 years ago after doing the most dominant performance in a one week stage race.

Every thing points to a fantastic stage racer (in GTs too).
 
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Sep 26, 2020
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14C and rain showers all day so young Seixas will have to have his wits about him. With over 2 minutes lead he can afford to be careful.
(Would be interesting to know the TV viewers number in France compared to last year. )

As long as he has his watts he should be ok.
 
Feb 20, 2012
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No RR. I don't think you are right in one thing. Certainly, there is a chance he was helped by a strong tailwind and a perfect leadout, however there is the time gap to other rivals and what he did in Pais Vasco (both stages 1 and 2) and Faun Ardenne Classic is something we never saw anyone doing, except Vingegaard, Pogacar and Remco. Since I believe Remco is cooked as a GT rider (I don't think he is stronger than Lipo these days), he is definitely the favorite to be third in July. We also need to look Vingegaard's performances in the Vuelta and I don't think he will be stronger in the TdF like Pogacar in 2024. So there are 3 reason that give Seixas a chance of getting a 2nd place (even if it's a small chance):

1 - Vingegaard doing the Giro before
2 - Seixas is improving and rising like a rocket
3 - he has been dominating races like Vingegaard (I'm sure he will do it again in the Dauphiné)

Is he very young? Yes. He lacks experience? Yes. Has he been weaker later in the race compared to eaely stages? Yes, however we should not forget he still has the race controlled, Lipo wasn't close to drop him (the same in Algarve with Ayuso. The typical "early peaker").
There is also the agressive way he has been racing in Pais Vasco. His performance dropprd just like Pogacar was almost dropped in Montjuic 2 years ago after doing the most dominant performance in a one week stage race.

Every thing points to a fantastic stage racer (in GTs too).
Gaps are extremely specific to route and race situation, and the TT gap will be significantly inflated due to his descending ability, which doesn't translate to flatter TTs.

The cleanest metric is probably taking ~55s on Aralar over a chase with 0 cooperation, and that's not that dissimilar to performance like Almeida taking around 50s on Splugenpas in the Tour de Suisse last season. Once G2 dynamics start happening, we can start ignoring the gaps, unless we have conclude that Simon Yates did the single best performance of the decade last season.

Overall, I'm also not that huge on extrapolating improvement and decline before it actually happens. The time between now and the Tour isn't that long, and normally you'd expect the biggest jump over the off season, especially for a rider like Seixas who is targeting these spring races and won't have the TdF or bust mentality.
 
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