Paul Seixas takes major Tour de France step with huge altitude training block

Training files shared on Strava point to an eye catching workload. Across twelve days, Seixas covered roughly 1,500 kilometres and accumulated around 37,000 metres of climbing. To put that into perspective, that is only about 20 percent fewer vertical metres than Jonas Vingegaard is expected to tackle across the entire Giro d’Italia, but packed into nine fewer days.

Seixas has been training alongside several Decathlon teammates, including Matthew Riccitello, Leo Bisiaux, Nicolas Prodhomme, Aurélien Paret Peintre and Stefan Bissegger. The altitude camp forms a key part of his build up to his final test before the Tour de France: the Tour Auvergne Rhône Alpes, formerly the Critérium du Dauphiné, which starts on June 7 and runs until June 14.

Decathlon’s decision to select Seixas for the Tour has already generated debate in France. Few riders are asked to carry such attention so early, and fewer still do so as a French prospect riding for a French team. The pressure surrounding home hopes at the Tour has long been unforgiving.

Yet Seixas has made it increasingly difficult for the team to hold him back.

His spring campaign changed the conversation around him. Strong rides at Strade Bianche, the Tour of the Basque Country, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège confirmed a rider developing faster than anyone anticipated. In Liège, he was the only rider able to follow Tadej Pogačar when the world champion attacked on La Redoute, briefly turning what is usually a one man selection into a direct contest.

Inside Decathlon, there is confidence that the move is ambitious rather than reckless.

“We’ve known about him in the team now for the last few years,” Decathlon Head of High Performance Stephen Barrett told Velo. “He’s an exceptional talent, but he’s also an exceptional bike rider, and also a really just good guy who wants to learn, who wants to progress, who asks questions.”

Barrett also pointed to the unusual depth of Seixas’ physical profile. “He’s got a massive resistance to fatigue,” he said. “We often see that develop with the more experience you have, and the older you get, but he has that already.”

That durability is one of the reasons Decathlon believes Seixas can cope with the jump. The team had initially considered a different Grand Tour debut, with the Vuelta a España among the options.

“Of course, it was a big discussion point within the team,” Barrett said. “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough.”

Still, the Tour will represent a very different challenge from anything Seixas has faced so far. The physical load is only part of it. The scrutiny will be relentless, especially for a French rider already being framed as a possible successor to Bernard Hinault, the country’s last Tour de France winner.

For now, the altitude camp has added another layer to the expectation around Seixas. In the Tour Auvergne Rhône Alpes, the first answers should follow.