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Stage Racing

Itzulia Basque Country GC Battle: Can Del Toro, Roglič and Ayuso Overhaul Seixas's Stunning Lead?

CYCLING LOOKOUT • 7 APRIL 2026

Nobody expected Paul Seixas to lead the Itzulia Basque Country. The 20-year-old Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale prodigy had been entered as a stage-hunter — a rider of enormous promise but not, most observers assumed, someone ready to obliterate the world's best time triallists on day one of a WorldTour race that defines the climbing elite. When Seixas arrived in Bilbao and proceeded to smash through Roglič's marker, then Ayuso's, then del Toro's — posting a time that left the entire GC field more than 20 seconds behind — the reaction around the race paddock fell somewhere between disbelief and excitement. Here, suddenly, was a race leader no one had planned for.

The Bilbao time trial was not a flat test of pure power. The 5.8km course climbed throughout, featuring gradients between 8% and 12% on its upper slopes — terrain that requires both explosive time-trial watts and the kind of climbing ability typically associated with Grand Tour contenders. That Seixas won it by such a margin immediately elevates him from talented youngster to legitimate Itzulia GC contender. The question the race's remaining stages must now answer is whether his time trial superiority translates to multi-day mountain racing, or whether Primož Roglič, Isaac del Toro or Juan Ayuso can expose the limitations that tend to emerge for riders of his age when the mountains stack up.

Del Toro arrived in the Basque Country as the consensus favourite and the rider with most to prove. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG climber has won two WorldTour stage races already in 2026 and enters Itzulia as a genuine Tour de France GC contender for July. His time trial deficit to Seixas was larger than expected, but the Mexican's team is experienced in race management — UAE has the depth to control difficult stages, and del Toro's climbing ability on the iconic Basque cols like Arrate, Lazkao and Usartza has been exceptional in previous editions. If anyone can reel in Seixas through accumulated mountain stage gaps, it is del Toro.

Primož Roglič finds himself in a now-familiar position at Itzulia: under time pressure early, hunting in the mountains later. The Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe veteran has won the Basque Country five times and understands its rhythms better than any other rider in the field. His response to finishing fifth in the time trial — "I would always prefer to win, but the real racing starts now" — carried the measured confidence of a man who has been here before. Roglič has a history of exploding on the final mountain stage at Itzulia, often saving his best for the last summit finish, and his five Basque Country victories were all built on patience followed by devastating late-race acceleration.

Juan Ayuso of UAE Team Emirates-XRG represents another threat, though the 21-year-old's spring campaign has been hampered by inconsistency. His reappearance at Itzulia — where he finished second in 2025 — signals a determination to reassert his GC credentials ahead of the Tour de France. Ayuso is a better climber in the pure sense than both Roglič and del Toro on steep Basque terrain, but his time trial deficit means he must attack rather than manage, which both increases his potential and his risk. A stage win in the mountains is the most likely path to cutting Seixas's lead.

The route through the remaining stages is relentlessly demanding. Stage 2 to Lekunberri features the brutal Cat. 1 San Miguel de Aralar. Stage 3 includes the Lazkao and Usartza climbs before the finish at Arrate. The penultimate and final stages take the race through the most iconic Basque terrain, with summit finishes that have produced race-deciding moves in every edition since 2019. For Seixas, riding in a leader's jersey he was never supposed to carry, the mountain days represent both the ultimate test of his season and the moment the cycling world will properly take measure of his ability.

What makes the Itzulia Basque Country 2026 genuinely compelling is that Seixas has no template to follow. No rider of his age has ever led this race after the opening time trial with a margin this large. The established contenders — Roglič, del Toro, Ayuso — will probe him relentlessly. Whether the Frenchman cracks or whether he reveals the kind of complete stage racer that only emerges once a decade will be one of the defining stories of the 2026 cycling calendar, running in parallel to the cobbled drama at Paris-Roubaix this same week.

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