'Tiesj Benoot told me he'd never seen Vingegaard train as hard as Paul did' - Seixas's road to a Tour de France debut

The team confirmed Seixas’s selection in April, two months after his early season victories at the Tour of the Basque Country and La Flèche Wallonne prompted a rethink of his programme. Coach Alexandre Pacot and teammate Aurélien Paret-Peintre spoke to Eurosport about the careful build-up to his Grand Tour debut.

Seixas completed 37 race days in 2025 as Decathlon CMA CGM gradually increased his workload. According to Pacot, the priority throughout had been to protect the young rider’s long term development.

"Competitions are good, but if you do too much of them, you can potentially hinder the development of certain qualities. You need training periods of three weeks to a month for optimal development. That's what we see with the top riders," Pacot told Eurosport.

Once the Tour de France became the target, however, the team was forced to accelerate that process. Pacot admitted that such a substantial increase in workload had not originally been planned at this stage of Seixas’s career.

"There's been a significant increase in workload that will allow the athlete to handle the three weeks of a Grand Tour. In the team, we're not used to pushing things this early, but it's true that we're somewhat forced to."

Paret-Peintre, who will ride alongside Seixas at the Tour, said the training volume had approached Grand Tour levels. Replicating the intensity of racing for three weeks, however, was another matter.

"The Tour de France is between 85 and 90 hours on the bike. During our training camp in May, we did between 75 and 78 hours, so we're close in terms of volume, but in terms of workload and sheer effort, it's incomparable."

One of Seixas' teammates, Sander De Pestel stated about the sheer workload of training the young Frenchman has undertaken, "I think he trained really, really hard in the lead-up to the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes,” said De Pestel on the Radio Stelvio podcast. “Tiesj Benoot told me he'd never seen Vingegaard train as hard as Paul Seixas did. I hope it hasn’t been too much. Time will tell...”

Seixas began his Tour preparations in March with a short training camp at his family home in Nice. He then travelled to Sierra Nevada for a 19-day altitude block.

That camp included a trip to the Tourmalet and a reconnaissance ride of the finale of stage 6, completed alongside teammates Matthew Riccitello and Nicolas Prodhomme.

Recovery has been a recurring theme throughout Seixas’s preparation. High intensity efforts were added at the end of each training camp to reproduce the fatigue he is likely to experience during a three week race.

His final competitive test before travelling to Barcelona came at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in June. Seixas crashed on stage 7, on the road to the Grand Colombier, before abandoning the following day.

Pacot said the incident ultimately cost him only the final stage of the race.

"Every fall has consequences. Despite everything, it only caused us to lose the last stage, for safety reasons. After the race, a recovery period without cycling was planned anyway, for physical and mental regeneration, with time spent with family. We still needed treatment for a few days and had to adapt some of our training."

Seixas resumed training in the final week of June and arrived in Barcelona on Tuesday. Ahead of the Grand Départ, he reconnoitred both the stage 1 team time trial and the stage 2 finishing circuit around Montjuïc.

His preparation is complete. In the coming 3 weeks, the youngest Tour starter in 89 years will discover whether it has been enough.