French prospect Paul Seixas extended his advantage in the overall standings to 1min 59secs ahead of Primoz Roglic

Mendukilo Kobazuloa (Spain) (AFP) - Teenage French starlet Paul Seixas stretched his overall lead at the Tour of the Basque Country on Tuesday after powering away from his rivals to win the mountainous second stage.

Seixas, who will not turn 20 until September, launched his solo attack on the toughest climb of the day, 26km from the finish.

“It was maybe a bit ambitious to attack so early, maybe I attacked earlier than what I wanted, but I felt it,” he said at the finish.

“After two or three minutes I was regretting it but of course I had no choice, so I pushed on until the finish.”

He came home 1min 25sec ahead of Dane Mattias Skjelmose in second with Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic just behind in third after a 164.1km ride from the famous bull-running town of Pamplona to Cuevas de Mendukilo, which is known for its Iron Age caves.

The great French hope extended his advantage in the overall standings to 1min 59secs ahead of Roglic with German Florian Lipowitz, who finished third at last year’s Tour de France, another nine seconds further back in third.

Amongst the pre-race favourites, Mexican Isaac Del Toro, who won the UAE Tour in February, is down in eighth overall at 2:44, while Juan Ayuso of Spain, the winner ahead of Seixas at February’s Tour of the Algarve, is 16th at almost four minutes.

“The overall isn’t finished, it’s never over until the last day, but now I know that I’m sure that I have the level to win here,” said Seixas.

On Monday, Seixas became the first Frenchman since 2021 to win a World Tour time-trial as he claimed victory in the opening stage around Bilbao to secure the leader’s yellow jersey, underlining his status as France’s leading prospect in the sport.

The Decathlon leader began the day with a 23-second advantage in the standings.

A seven-man breakaway, including Seixas’s compatriot Bruno Armirail, built up a lead over 2min 30sec at one point.

With 50km left, Frenchman Kevin Vauquelin, who had started the day in second, went down in a crash but was quickly back on his bike.

He cracked later on, though, and is now down in 21st overall.

The breakaway’s lead was just over a minute when they hit the main challenge of the day, the 9.4km-long San Miguel de Aralar with an average gradient of 7.8 percent.

With 6km to go to the summit, and 26km of the race left, Seixas blasted away from the peloton and quickly snared the breakaway riders.

After that, it was merely a question of how much time he would put into his rivals.

Wednesday’s third stage of six is a 152.8km hilly ride starting and ending in the town of Basauri, just to the south of Bilbao.