Full steam ahead for the hype train: Seixas crushes Basque Country TT

Cor Vos

With some hilly stages on tap in the week to come, the Itzulia Basque Country was always going to be a great opportunity for Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) to secure his first ever WorldTour win. With some stiff competition in the opening time trial, however, stage 1 seemed like a challenging one for the 19-year-old Frenchman.

Seixas did not get the memo. All aboard the hype train!

In a 13.8 km test that featured an early Cat. 3 climb and an uphill run to the line, Seixas crushed the competition, which included TT talents like the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe duo of Primož Roglič and Florian Lipowitz, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG pairing of Brandon McNulty and Isaac del Toro, and Lidl-Trek's Juan Ayuso. With a time of 17:09, Seixas was comfortably 23 seconds ahead of the day's runner-up Kévin Vauquelin (Ineos Grenadiers) – more than 1 km/h faster than second place – and now enjoys a substantial advantage in the overall standings.

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