Tour de l’Avenir fireworks: Widar beats Seixas in Tignes, Nordhagen finishes third

From Saint-Gervais-Mont Blanc to Tignes, a distance of 117 kilometers, was on the program for the world's best young cyclists on Thursday. When you read those two place names, you know what to expect: climbing, pushing, and working till the top.

The race started with the Col des Saisies, a 13.8-kilometer climb with an average gradient of 5 percent. Before the start of that climb, there was a group with a slight lead: Brit Noah Hobbs, American Cole Kessler, Belgian Jasper Schoofs, Norwegian Storm Ingebrigtsen, Colombian Estiven Garcia, Canadian Jerome Gauthier, Polish Patryk Goszczunrny, and Mexican Jose Juan Prieto were all present.

On the Saisies, the Belgians took control of the pace, managing to reel in the leaders one by one. Polish rider Goszczunrny, who rides typically for the Visma | Lease a Bike development team, was the last to be caught before we started the Cornet de Roselend: the second and most challenging climb of the day, with 20 kilometers of climbing at 6 percent.

There, the Spaniards took over the pace in support of Pablo Torres. Last year's Tour de l'Avenir animator attacked during the climb and was joined by another prodigy, Seixas. The Frenchman even continued alone on the descent. At that point, there were still 53 kilometers to go to Tignes, where the finish line was at an altitude of 2100 meters.

Seixas realized it was too early and let himself be caught up by what remained of the peloton, which meant that everything came down to the 26-kilometer final climb. There, the Belgians once again took the lead, expressing their confidence in the abilities of their leader, Widar. He attacked 7.5 kilometers from the finish and once again got Seixas to follow him.

Lorenzo Finn also tried to join them, but only succeeded on his second attempt. Jakob Omrzel, Mateo Ramirez, and Jørgen Nordhagen also climbed well and managed to join them in the final kilometers. The man from Ecuador even dared to attack.

However, Widar and Seixas did not let that happen and went for it again. The Belgian beat his French opponent by a narrow margin. Nordhagen came third.