The old concrete velodrome in Roubaix already has its place in Irish cycling history. It was here, lest anyone forget, where Shay Elliott completed his 3km breakaway to win stage three of the 1963 Tour de France.
With that, Elliott also took the leader’s yellow jersey, wearing it for the next three days, and became the first so-called English-speaking rider to win stages in all three Grand Tours. No wonder the French cycling fans adored him.
“This is a sort of revenge for me on this great classic route,” Elliott told reporters that day, referencing the broken saddle that five years earlier denied him victory in Paris-Roubaix, still the most famous and toughest one-day bike race in the world.
“Paris-Roubaix is a horrible race to ride, but the most beautiful one to win,” Sean Kelly once said, and he knew what he was talking about. In 1984, Kelly won a close sprint inside the velodrome to become the first and only Irish rider to win Paris-Roubaix, also considered the most coveted of cycling’s five monument races, before winning it again in 1986.
Kelly won four of the five monuments, nine in all, including Milan-San Remo (twice), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (twice), and Il Lombardia (three times). The only one missing from his palmarès is the Tour of Flanders, arguably the second toughest of the lot.
Last Sunday, on a cold and rainy day in the north of Belgium, Tadej Pogacar won his third Flanders title, this one wrapped up after another familiar solo breakaway 17km before the finish. Having already won Milan-San Remo last month, his 12th monument in all, Pogacar goes into this Sunday’s 123rd edition of Paris-Roubaix on course to become the first rider to win all five monuments in the same season.
At 27, some people reckon Pogacar is on the brink of cycling immortality, already the greatest of all time, etc. It might still be premature to make that call, but whether he’s first home in the velodrome on Sunday, the race covering 258km and including 29 sections of the fabled granite pavé, the Slovenian rider continues to be all-conquering, from the one-day monuments to the three-week Grand Tours.
Tadej Pogacar rides with his team over the cobblestones of the ‘trench’ of Aremberg in Wallers, northern France. Photograph: Francois Lo Presti/AFP via Getty Images
Some French cycling fans haven’t exactly warmed to Pogacar, possibly because his period of absolute dominance has coincided with the limitations of their own riders. Or simply because the breathlessness with which Pogacar keeps winning has become something of a turn-off.
Now say hello to Paul Seixas. At just 19, Seixas has already been hailed as the saviour of French cycling, the one rider who could possibly rival what Pogacar has done in recent years. If that’s putting undue pressure or expectation on Seixas, he is already revelling in it.
In his first professional season last year, with French team Decathlon, Seixas became the youngest rider to score a top 10 finish in a UCI World Tour stage race by finishing eighth overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné. At the Tour de l’Avenir, considered a junior Tour de France, he won two stages as well as the overall general classification.
As if to further tease his potential, Seixas finished 2025 by making the podium at the European road championships in Guilherand-Granges in the southeast of France, where the fans went nuts. Only Pogacar and Belgian superstar Remco Evenepoel finished ahead of him, and the following morning L’Équipe put the 19-year-old on the front page: “Paul Seixas – Déjà Grand [Already Great]”.
In his first one-day classic as a pro last month, Seixas finished second to Pogacar in Strade Bianche, beating a host of far more seasoned riders in that race across the rolling hills of Tuscany. And this week, while Pogacar has been gearing up for his crack at history in Paris-Roubaix, Seixas has been ripping up the Tour of the Basque Country.
In Monday’s opening time trial, Seixas won by 23 seconds, before winning stage two by one minute and 25 seconds. The gangly teenager can clearly climb and descend, and so far the French cycling press can’t get enough of their new baby-faced assassin.
Paul Seixas crosses the finish line of the fourth stage of the Tour of the Basque Country. Photograph: Ander Gillenea/AFP via Getty Images
Born in Lyons, his parents both karate practitioners, Seixas first showed an interest in cycling at age eight after watching the Tour de France with his grandfather. His first big breakthrough came when he won the under-20 time trial for France at the 2024 World Championships, and he’s hardly looked over his shoulder since.
“I always say that my biggest dream is to win the Tour de France,” Seixas told The Athletic in February, clearly not shy of sharing his lofty ambitions. “I think it’s the biggest achievement you can have as a cyclist. And then, to win the World Championships in 2027 in Haute-Savoie.”
No French rider has won the Tour de France since Bernard Hinault, back in 1985, and it’s not yet certain Seixas will even start this summer’s race, where Pogacar will be chasing his fifth title in all.
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In Holy Week of last year Pogacar was beaten into second at Paris-Roubaix by his Dutch one-day rival Mathieu van der Poel. Clearly that hurt, physically and mentally, if only reinforcing his intent to go one place better this time.
Even at this stage in his career, there aren’t many cycling records left for Pogacar to chase, and if he does win on Sunday, he’ll become the first reigning Tour de France champion to win Paris-Roubaix since Eddy Merckx, in 1973.
It might then only be a matter of time before Pogacar is looking over his shoulder to see how fast Seixas is gaining on him.