2026 La Flèche Wallonne Results & Recap
2026 La Flèche Wallonne is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Paul Seixas (DCT) became the youngest ever winner of Flèche Wallonne with an astonishing display of front-running on the final and decisive ascent of the Mur de Huy, his final acceleration taking him well clear of the chasing pack, which was led in by Mauro Schmid (JAY), just ahead of Ben Tulett (TVL), with Benoît Cosnefroy (UAD) is fourth place and Mattias Skjelmose (LTK) fifth.
This latest success was as impressive as his recent domination of a top-class field at Itzulia Basque Country, where he took three stage wins on the way to overall victory and came despite a fall that left him with cuts on both legs. That incident occurred on the descent away from the second passage over the Côte de Cherave, when the peloton was closing in on the break of the day, which had contained six riders but was down to four – Andreas Leknessund (UXM), Jardi Christiaan van der Lee (EFE), Sjoerd Bax (PQT) and Jakub Otruba (CJR).
Leknessund looked the strongest of the quartet and proved that the third and last time over the Côte d'Ereffe. The Norwegian champion maintained a narrow lead approaching the foot of the Cherave for the final occasion, but Decathlon CMA CGM Team were leading the peloton up to him fast and he was soon reeled in.
Red Bull led over the climb, but Decathlon were always close to the front as the riders swept down the bank of the River Meuse on the approach to Huy. Léo Bisiaux and Paul Lapeira guided Seixas into the town, before Jordan Labrosse made a big final effort on the front leading into the Mur's first steep ramps.
Seixas and Tulett were in the front rank almost from the bottom, riding side by side initially until the steepest corner where the gradient reaches 25%. Here, Seixas took up the pace-making. It seemed like he might have misjudged his effort and gone too soon, but he quickly showed that this wasn't the case.
Seeing his rivals struggling, he pushed hard again from 200 metres out and the gap steadily widened as he claimed his first big Classics success. Next up is Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday and an encounter with Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel.
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