Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar will face stiff competition from teenage French sensation Paul Seixas when he begins his 2026 season bidding for a record fourth Strade Bianche title on Saturday.
Pogacar's long-range attacks in his three victories at Strade Bianche have become the stuff of legend, and he has been imperious on the picturesque white gravel roads of Tuscany.
Last year, the four-time Tour de France winner claimed victory at Strade Bianche despite crashing 50-kilometres form the finish and losing around 30 seconds to his breakaway companion Tom Pidcock.
The 27-year-old is once again the overwhelming favourite this weekend, but the rise of Seixas has led some to believe that Pogacar may soon have a legitimate rival to his cycling crown.
At just 19 years old, Seixas is already more advanced than Pogacar was at the same age.
Last year, Seixas won the Tour de l'Avenir – the junior equivalent of the Tour de France – as an 18 year-old, and last month he took his first victory as a professional by winning a stage of the Volta ao Algarve.
Pogacar was 19 when he won the Tour de l'Avenir in 2018 and a year older than that when he secured his first professional victory – also a stage win in the Algarve.
What really has he French cycling public salivating was Seixas's performance on Saturday at the Ardeche Classic.
He made his winning attack Pogacar-style some 40km from the finish, casually riding American Matteo Jorgensen – a two-time winner of the prestigious Paris-Nice race – off his wheel on a climb while taking a sip from his water bottle.
He went on to win by almost two minutes.
"For me, he's already in the top five," former cycling team manager Marc Madiot told French radio station RMC at the weekend.
"There is Pogacar, Isaac del Toro, you can keep Jonas Vingegaard in there for now, there's Seixas, Mathieu van der Poel," added Madiot, who did not even mention double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel.
"Seixas has something that others don't have, or that few have, like Pogacar or Van der Poel.
"Lionel Messi, when he started kicking a ball, already had something that the others didn't have."
- Seixas 'can't wait' -
The pair raced against each other several times last year, with Pogacar coming out on top.
Seixas finished third at the European Championships, seventh at the Giro di Lombardia and eighth in the Criterium du Dauphine stage race – all won by Pogacar.
But last year, Seixas was still mostly competing in the junior ranks.
He has been rubbing shoulders with the world's best riders for close to a year now.
"I can't wait to take part in Strade Bianche, it's one of my favourite races, I've been watching it on television since I was 12 or 13 years old," Seixas said this week.
"I think it's a race that suits me, but the starting list of riders is impressive."
Pogacar, the reigning world champion, won this race in 2022 and 2024 with stunning attacks from 50km and 80km out respectively.
The Slovenian will have rising Mexican star Del Toro alongside him in his UAE team but his other important one-day classics domestiques, Tim Wellens and Jhonatan Narvaez, are both missing through injury.
Another potential challenger to Pogacar is Briton Pidcock, the two-time Olympic mountain bike champion who finished second last year.
He won the race in 2023 and showed impressive form in winning a stage at the Vuelta a Andalucia last month.
Another former Strade Bianche winner, Wout Van Aert, will also be on the start line in his second race since breaking his ankle in December during the cyclocross season.
He started his road season on Wednesday in the Samyn Classic in Belgium but lost all chances of fighting for the win when he suffered a puncture 10km from the end that he blamed on "sabotage".