As we warned you in our preview, La Flèche Wallonne is essentially 198 kilometers of heavily televised pacing, followed by three minutes of anaerobic, lactic-acid-induced torture. It requires extreme patience, flawless positioning, and the raw wattage of a freight train.
And apparently, it can be completely mastered by a literal teenager. Which, not to brag, is also something we warned you about.
In a jaw-dropping finale, 19-year-old French sensation Paul Seixas (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) became the youngest winner in the 90-year history of La Flèche Wallonne.
The buildup to the Mur de Huy was the usual nervous, crash-filled affair, with a massive tailwind pushing the peloton toward the final climb. Once they hit the 1.3-kilometer wall of agony, Decathlon completely took over.
They delivered Seixas to the bottom of the climb in first position. Historically, leading from the absolute bottom of the Mur is a rookie mistake that results in a blow up with 150 meters to go. But Seixas didn’t panic. He simply rode everyone off his wheel.
The 19-year-old paced the climb perfectly, keeping Visma’s Ben Tulett trapped in his slipstream before launching a seated acceleration with 300 meters to go. Nobody could follow. Seixas crossed the line pointing to his chest, casually logging the third-fastest ascent of the Mur de Huy in recorded history (2:43).
Behind him, Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) dug deep to pass Tulett for a surprising second place, while Benoît Cosnefroy and Mattias Skjelmose rounded out the top five.
Seixas now heads to Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday to face off against Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel.
Results
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