Teenage prodigy Paul Seixas to make Tour de France debut this July
Teenage super-talent Paul Seixas will make his Tour de France debut next July, his team confirmed on Monday.
Speculation has been rife for months over whether the 19-year-old Frenchman would line up for Barcelona this summer after a run of hugely impressive results, or whether his Decathlon CMA CGM team would protect him from the weight of expectations – notably from the French press as a home favorite – and the grueling physical challenge of riding the Tour, the most demanding of the three Grand Tours, at such a young age.
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Seixas is only in his first full season as a professional rider and has never competed in a Grand Tour. But he made waves with remarkable performances, winning the Itzulia Pays Basque stage race in April and La Flèche Wallonne, as well as finishing second – only behind Tadej Pogacar – at the Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
His triumph in the Basque Country, when he took all four jerseys and won three stages, made him the first Frenchman to win a WorldTour-level stage race since Christophe Moreau won the 2007 Critérium du Dauphine.
These results, associated with the maturity of his performances – in particular his ability and his desire to compete with Pogacar – mean that he is already presented as the successor to Bernard Hinault, the last Frenchman to have won the Tour de France, in 1985.
Decathlon had previously indicated that its summer program would be re-evaluated after the Ardennes Classics, with its excellent results there making a Tour departure all the more likely.
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The team posted a video of Seixas sharing the news of his plans to ride the Tour with his grandparents, with the caption: “I have something to tell you… I have something to tell you.”
The Lyon teenager has previously said his biggest dream is to win the Tour de France. The race starts in Barcelona on July 4 and ends in Paris on July 26 this year.
Defending champion Pogacar lines up as the clear favorite after another outstanding spring campaign, with his main rival Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel expected to do battle.
After Seixas’ good start to the season, Decathlon will have reason to hope for a podium finish and stage victories for the teenager, while from a more commercial point of view, his participation will provide publicity for the French team.
