Paul Magnier

The Texan from Grenoble shifts gears 🚵

Before unleashing his horsepower on a bike, Paul Magnier tried everything: handball, tennis and above all skiing on the slopes of Grenoble 🎿. Cycling only entered the picture at 14, prompted by his father Laurent, a former amateur rider.

Mountain biking and cyclo-cross caught his attention first. The training centers in Voiron and then Besançon sharpened the young rider from Isère. In 2022, he won the bronze medal in the junior cross-country at the Mountain Bike World Championships, in Les Gets 🥉. That same year, the road smiled on him too: 4th at the junior World Championships and 2 stages at the Giro della Lunigiana.

Soudal Quick-Step recruited him for 2024, after a stint at Trinity Racing in 2023. On January 25, he scored his first pro victory at the Trofeo Ses Salines-Felanitx, in Mallorca. That first season brought 5 UCI victories, including 3 stages of the Tour of Britain, before a heavy crash on the final stage.

A sprint that makes the peloton look like a gruppetto 💨

The breakthrough came in the autumn of 2025. At the Tour de Slovakia, Paul Magnier won the first 4 stages, followed up with the CRO Race, then headed to the Tour of Guangxi, where he won 5 stages out of 6 🌏. The year closed with 19 victories: only Tadej Pogačar did better, and no Frenchman had amassed as many wins since Laurent Jalabert in 1997.

His secret? Much more than watts. Before this winning spree, those around him compared him to a bodybuilder, with firepower but little endurance when the race got tough. His teammate Tim Merlier had already advised him to do less in training 💪.

His sunny personality does the rest. Someone once summed him up in two words, "fast and fun", a formula he happily endorses ⚡. He even treated himself, just for fun, to a round of Gran Fondo, this long-distance cyclosportive, and won it.

Paul Magnier's record is picking up speed 🏆

2026 opens the big doors. On May 8, in Burgas, Bulgaria, he won stage 1 of the Giro d'Italia and pulled on the pink jersey 🩷. He repeated in Sofia on May 10, then in Pieve di Soligo on May 28. Rome welcomed him wearing the cyclamen jersey.

On June 14, he won the sprint at the Muur Classic, in Geraardsbergen, home of the famous Muur van Geraardsbergen 🧱 .

On August 16, the Cyclassics in Hamburg, an event on the UCI World Tour calendar, gave him his first one-day classic at this level. A year after finishing 3rd, he won the sprint on the Mönckebergstraße in 4h17'55", ahead of Mike Teunissen and Laurence Pithie, after more than 200 km and 1,802 m D+ of leg-breaking terrain. No Frenchman had won there since Arnaud Démare in 2012 🏁.

The end of the season ran at the same pace. On October 16, a 2nd stage win at the 2026 Tour of Guangxi gave him his 15th victory of the year, the 39th of his career and a record: 7 stages won at this race. The Tour de France will have to wait: he skipped the 2026 edition, preferring the classics and other grand tours, without hiding his desire to one day compete for the rainbow jersey. In 2027, we might well see him at the start of the Grande Boucle.

Want to ride in his wheel tracks? The Cyclassics also has a cyclosportive version with 60 km and 110 km routes on closed roads. The Flemish hills can be climbed at We ride Flanders. And when your final sprint is on foot, marathons and trails are waiting for you on their start line.

He dreams of the rainbow jersey, you, aim for your next bib on Finishers. 🫵