The Rise of Paul Seixas

He is Risen.

Despite the widely-held view in this sport (as in all athletic endeavors) that you are only as good as your last race, there is no escaping the conclusion, at least from a French perspective, that Paul Seixas is indeed the Messiah.

So why is the most recent bike race such a blight on the previously unstoppable ascension of the 19-year-old?

Seixas crashed hard on Stage 7 of the Tour Auvergne-Rhone Alpes (an event that should always be known as the Dauphine), and despite finishing the stage strongly and remaining in contention to win the General Classification, he was forced to abandon the race on the first descent the next day, which was the final stage.

DNF is never a good look on one’s record in the most important preparation race before the Tour de France, especially one’s debut, but in order to encapsulate the unbelievable talent we are dealing with here, and how truly unprecedented this is, we have to back way up.

Seixas rode some races in the early spring of 2025, his neo-pro year in the WorldTour. He didn’t do much of note except finishing second in Paris – Camembert in April, but French Cup results do not mean much in the WorldTour.

It was in the 2025 Tour of the Alps where, for the first time at the highest level, he made a major impact. He finished 3rd, 2nd, and 6th on the first three stages, before losing his place on the General Classification on Stage Four. On the 5th and final day, he and his teammate Nicolas Prodhomme (who is a decade older) went for an epic long raid, and Seixas, despite being obviously stronger, gifted the first win of Prodhomme’s career to his senior compatriot.

Seixas would not win a professional race in 2025 (though we could hardly have expected an 18-year-old to do so), while Prodhomme won five more, including a stage of the Giro d’Italia. However, as many of us expected in 2026, the roles have reversed, with Prodhomme in a major slump and Seixas rapidly ascending the ranks. But let’s remain in 2025 and discuss how quickly Seixas improved from DNFing the UAE Tour in February to almost winning a high-level race in April.

His next race was the Criterium du Dauphine. He rode for GC, never finishing better than 10th on a stage but coming 8th overall against an extremely strong field. This was probably the first sign for the French public that this guy was truly something special.

It was also the next step in the trend of him racing well, training for a month or two, and coming to the next race a level higher. When you do that six or seven times, you go from an also-ran in French Cup races to a Tour de France contender within a year. Apologies for the spoiler, but I assume most people reading this are aware of the unusual trajectory of Paul Seixas. Most riders, no matter how young, do not level up a half-dozen times in fewer than 12 months. But because this kid continues to improve at rather unprecedented rates, we simply cannot forecast his ceiling, this July or ever.

Seixas rode the French National Championships and finished 3rd in the time trial (yet another hint that the kid is the entire package) and 9th in the road race on a course that did not fully suit him.

His next target was the Tour de l’Avenir, the Tour of the Future. This an eight-day race for U23 riders which has a history of predicting future GC riders, in recent history especially so if the winner is far younger than 23. Seixas, of course, was still 18 in late August last year. He won l’Avenir including two stages against perhaps the strongest climbing field ever assembled in the race.

It is interesting that he had a nearly two-month break between nationals and l’Avenir, which again produced a level-up. This is sort of how Tadej Pogacar structures a season, and seems to be a fairly optimal balance between trying to race at the highest level for more than half of the year and training to improve.

Seixas then rode a series of one-day races to conclude his rookie season. He did the World Championships Time Trial, finishing a somewhat disappointing 16th, the Mixed Relay, in which France finished 2nd, and the road race, where he initially appeared to be a top-five climber in the race, but the distance probably got to him a bit and he finished 13th, which was still an incredible result for him. Then his two really big breakthroughs in one-day races saw him finish 3rd at the European Championships Road Race behind only Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel, and then 7th at Il Lombardia, where I again think the difference was the longer distance of a Monument.

Seixas had high hopes entering 2026, and the reports coming from his team camp were that he had improved massively in the off-season.

His first race was to be the Volta a Algarve, a 2.Pro stage race in Portugal which traditionally attracts a stronger start list than some WorldTour races. Seixas won the first climbing stage in a strong performance, out-sprinting Juan Ayuso and Oscar Onley. A first professional victory is an important milestone, and not too shabby at age 19 against second-tier GC riders. Seixas would finish 4th in the time trial the next day, and 3rd on the final mountain stage to secure 2nd on the final GC to Ayuso.

Seixas then rode the Faun-Ardeche Classic in France, destroying a strong field (and Pogacar’s climbing record on the featured climb, recording the best climbing performance ever in February) with a 41-kilometer solo. It was becoming harder and harder to doubt the teenager’s imminent rise to the top of cycling.

But it was really in his next race, Strade Bianche, that the world saw the future of cycling. When Pogacar did his trademark attack with 80k remaining, Seixas briefly held his wheel when no one else could. After Pogacar inevitably escaped solo and won the race, Seixas rode full-gas for two hours with the Slovenian’s teammate, Isaac del Toro, on his wheel, then dropped del Toro on the final ramp to finish solo 2nd, just a minute behind the strongest rider of all time.

After a one-month break, Seixas then headed to Itzulia Basque Country to prepare for the Ardennes. He won three stages in dominant fashion and the GC, firing a warning shot at the future GC men of the world.

Commencing La Fleche Wallonne as favorite, Seixas rode the race like a seasoned professional and became the youngest winner in the history of the prestigious race. He also broke one of the most prestigious climbing records in cycling on the Mur de Huy.

Then, it was time for his second appointment with a Monument and Pogacar at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, his debut in this race. It was after Fleche that I began to consider him a contender for victory in the Tour de France THIS YEAR, and the undisputed future of cycling, not just French cycling. It was after Liege that the cycling world as a whole began to have difficulty doubting his status as the Messiah. So what on earth happened in La Doyenne to create this paradigm shift?

We need to add context before we analyze this race and Seixas’ position in the the hierarchy of cycling. Tadej Pogacar entered The Old Lady race as a three-time winner, only having lost the race in his career when Julian Alaphilippe chopped him in the sprint in 2020, he DNSed in 2022, and he DNFed due to a crash in 2023. Pogacar has never lost at Liege without extenuating circumstances.

Liege is an extremely difficult and prestigious (the oldest of the five Monuments) race. Even though the course was changed in 2019 to a flat finish, and Pogacar managed to win a sprint in 2021, The script for the race has been in place since 2022, when Remco Evenepoel attacked about 34 kilometers from the finish on La Redoute and won solo. Pogacar had executed this strategy successfully in 2024 and 2025 , everyone knew he would try the same this time around. He had also broken the record on the climb two years in a row, and was visibly not pushing all-out in 2025. The specter of the attack loomed heavily over the peloton, and the biggest question was whether the prodigal son could follow it.

Liege was a great race,with Remco Evenepoel slipping into a split that went up the road by more than four minutes. But UAE did not panic and brought it back in due time, and Pogacar launched viciously on La Redoute. When the chaos of fans, noise, motorcycles, and cameras attempting to sort out what was happening had settled, the viewer noticed a lanky figure with a blue jersey, sitting on Pogacar’s wheel as the Slovenian rocketed away from the hapless peloton up the hill. Pogacar held a massive tempo all the way to the top, but Seixas hung tough and stuck to him like glue.

After the race, we would learn that Pogacar had taken another 13 seconds off the record, which now sat at 3:45, and pushed an estimated 9.2 watts per kilogram for that duration, which by any metric is the best sub-10-minute climbing performance in history (And I’d argue it is among the best performances of any duration).

We should expect nothing less from the Slovenian, who, after five hard hours in the saddle can still rampage up a 10.5 percent grade at 25 kilometers per hour. Watching a 19-year-old from France stay with him while Pogacar is going full beans is another story. On La Redoute, Seixas proved that he is already the second-strongest puncheur in the world.

Of course, Pogacar predictably dropped him on the final climb and soloed away to win (again) by a minute, but Seixas held off the chasers to finish a stunning second. At this point, I decided that this guy had no limits. Nothing would surprise me, even this year.

As mentioned, Seixas’ next race was the artist formerly known as the Dauphine, which he entered as the favorite to win. Of course, this was his first real setback of 2026, finishing with him abandoning the race on the final stage due to injuries sustained in a crash the day before. But in my view, the failed Dauphine means absolutely nothing regarding his prospects for the Tour de France, which starts in just two-and-a-half weeks.

To understand the pressure on this young man’s shoulders, we must consider his nationality. The last Frenchman to win the Tour de France was Bernard Hinault in 1985. The Badger won five Tours in his career, so the French were used to their own dominating their race. But the French GC drought is even deeper than in July: prior to Seixas’ victory in the Basque Country, a French rider had not won a WorldTour Stage Race since 2008.

So he is already the best French GC rider in more than 20 years (of course, based on overall level as a cyclist, he is already the strongest ever). But how will he fare in his first Grand Tour? We can only guess, as 21 stages is far different from six, which is the longest race he’s yet won.

He is going to be the youngest man to even start the Tour de France in this millennium. That he already has a chance to win the race against the strongest GC field ever assembled says everything about his potential.

Paul Seixas is going to break the French Tour curse. The only question today is whether he can do it this year. I’d give him 5% chance.

My final prediction for Seixas is third place this year.

Tour de France Preview incoming.

17 Days.

*All race result information courtesy of ProCyclingStats.com