In Seixas' shadow: These 5 riders had a major breakthrough in 2026

If you’re nineteen years old, from Slovenia, and you win the Giro Next Gen, people immediately start drawing big comparisons. Coming from the same country as Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič, Jakob Omrzel—who made his WorldTour debut for Bahrain Victorious—was immediately in the spotlight. But the youngster remained ice-cold under all the pressure.

In fact, he actually welcomed that pressure. “People expect more from us, but I don’t care,” he told us just last year. “I know what I’m capable of. If I’m realistic, I know the results will come. But the pressure doesn’t bother me. It’s actually good to have it, if you have the right mindset to handle it.”

For example, he finished sixth in the Tour of the Alps and third in his home country at the Tour of Slovenia. He was then able to start his first Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España, without any pressure. And on Stage 12, he surprised friends and foes alike by winning the stage. In the final week, he was able to compete with the best and put pressure on Oscar Onley in the battle for the white jersey. The result: a seventh-place finish. What an introduction to the general public!

Of all the names on this list, Alessandro Fancellu’s is perhaps the least well-known. So is his team. The relatively obscure MBH Bank CSB Telefort Com only received a professional license this year. And Fancellu himself? He rode for teams including EOLO-Kometa and Q36.5, but didn’t make much of an impact there. He returned to the continental circuit, where he quietly began to make a name for himself.

And so MBH Bank, having just turned pro, took on the challenge. They hoped that the 26-year-old climber would be able to rack up the necessary UCI points, just as he had done for the Japanese team UKYO in 2025, when he finished third in the Czech Tour. But what he showed this year was something few experts had expected.

He got off to a solid start to the year, finishing sixth in the Tour of Turkey and fourth in the Tour of Slovenia. But it was at the Czech Tour that he really showed his best side, claiming his very first professional victory in the final stage. He also finished second overall. And in the Giro d’Abruzzo, he won again, but lost the lead on the final day. Add to that a 19th-place finish in Il Lombardia, and the move to Jayco AlUla on the WorldTour suddenly doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

In 2025, Afonso Eulálio made the leap from Conti-level rider to WorldTour pro. It was a major step for the young Portuguese rider, who had already shown flashes of his talent that year. However, his ninth-place finish at the World Championships in Kigali proved to be a sign of things to come. Eulálio hadn’t yet secured a pro victory, but in only his second Grand Tour, he put on a spectacular performance.

In the fifth stage of the Giro d'Italia, he battled for the stage win. In rain-soaked Potenza, he ultimately had to concede defeat to Igor Arrieta, but he did take the pink jersey, with a lead of more than six minutes over the general classification contenders. It should have been a piece of cake for those riders, but the Portuguese rider put up a valiant fight.

He wore the pink jersey for no fewer than nine days. When he lost it to Jonas Vingegaard in the fifteenth stage, it was expected that he would slip further down the standings. But he once again demonstrated his tenacity and even remained in contention for a podium finish for a long time. A sixth-place finish in the general classification and the white jersey were the results for the 25-year-old climber, who was the standout performer of the race.

But there were more surprises in that Giro d'Italia. After the opening stage in Burgas, a battle for the pink jersey was expected among the big names in the second, hilly stage. But Jonas Vingegaard, Giulio Pellizzari, and Lennert Van Eetvelt were caught at the very last moment. Few people had predicted that Guillermo Thomas Silva would go on to win the sprint.

It was already well known that the Uruguayan had class. But at Caja Rural - Seguros RGA, he had mainly made his mark in smaller races, particularly in Asia. He continued to do so during his first few months with XDS Astana. But suddenly, he became the first rider from his country to win a stage in a Grand Tour and also wear the leader’s jersey.

He finished in the top ten four more times during those three weeks and placed third in the points classification. But his winning streak wasn’t over yet: he won the Clasica Odrizia, the Clasica Castilla y Leon, and a stage as well as the overall classification at the Arctic Race of Norway. That brought his total number of wins to eight as of 2026. And he’s still only 24.

The struggling Picnic PostNL team didn’t have many highlights, but Frits Biesterbos is definitely one of them. The 24-year-old Dutchman made an impression on gravel last year, winning the Dutch title and finishing second at the World Championships on home soil. But the leap from the continental BEAT team to the WorldTour with Picnic PostNL seemed like a very big step.

That’s why, at first, there wasn’t much pressure on the man from Apeldoorn. But when he sprinted to third place in his debut at the AlUla Tour, behind Jonathan Milan and Matteo Malucelli, it was clear that he had a lot of potential. And the strong results just kept coming. For example, he finished third in Veenendaal-Veenendaal and placed 33rd in his debut at Paris-Roubaix.

And just like that, he suddenly became one of the key riders on the Dutch team. He even started in the Tour de France, though he was sent home for unclear reasons. That didn’t dampen his spirits, though. In the autumn, he once again showed his best side, with the absolute highlight being his first (WorldTour) victory in the Tour of Guangxi, where he soundly defeated Paul Magnier. A dream debut year for Biesterbos.