{"id":613111,"date":"2026-04-17T14:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/613111\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T14:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:55:08","slug":"decathlon-ds-cant-believe-how-good-paul-seixas-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/613111\/","title":{"rendered":"Decathlon DS can\u2019t believe how good Paul Seixas is"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s hype, and then there\u2019s whatever Paul Seixas is doing right now. Which is winning\u2013a lot.
The 19-year-old\u2019s performances are making his own team feeling\u2026a little blown away. On The Cycling Show<\/a>, Decathlon CMA CGM directeur sportif and former pro Heinrich Haussler didn\u2019t try to dress it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m basically speechless,\u201d he said, as reported by Cycloupdate.<\/a><\/p>\n

Seixas\u2019 overall victory at Itzulia Basque Country didn\u2019t come out of nowhere, but damn, it was still impressive.<\/p>\n

The great French hope delivers<\/p>\n

The French teenager had already hinted at something bigger with a first pro win at the Volta ao Algarve, then went a step further with second at Strade Bianche behind Tadej Poga\u010dar. The kid is good. Very, very good.<\/p>\n

At Itzulia, though, he dominated. Seixas won stages he didn\u2019t even need to, and he did it with the panache of a guy like Bernard Hinault. Which, btw, is an important name to consider, given what pretty much all French cycling fans may be expecting from Seixas.<\/p>\n

Impressive style of racing<\/p>\n

For Haussler, it\u2019s the way Seixas races that stands out as much as the results.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis mental approach, the way he rides, the moves in the finale\u2026 for a 19-year-old, I\u2019m completely blown away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That impact is already being felt across the team. Seixas\u2019 presence has shifted expectations internally, changing the way Decathlon lines up at races.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a rider like that\u2026 we\u2019re here to win,\u201d Haussler said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there were rumours the team would change its licence<\/a> to a Swiss one, due to the high costs of French labour laws which can take away from its overall budget.<\/p>\n

Marc Madiot has spoken of this in the past, but according to Decathlon bosses, that ain\u2019t happening, and the team will continue with its French identity. Given that Seixas clearly is The Next Big Thing, you can imagine that everyone in the country wants the team to keep it as Francais as possible.<\/p>\n

Even French PM Emmanuel Macron<\/a> was in on the \u201cKeep Decathlon French\u201d movement.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long time since a French male rider has won the Tour (Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot won the women\u2019s in 2025). For les hommes, it was back in 1985 that Bernard Hinault won it. Julian Alaphilippe came close though, in 2019\u2014he was leading with a few days to go. Egan Bernal eventually took it, with the French rider finishing 5th overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s hype, and then there\u2019s whatever Paul Seixas is doing right now. Which is winning\u2013a lot.The 19-year-old\u2019s performances…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-613111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}