{"id":596549,"date":"2026-04-11T07:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T07:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/596549\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T07:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T07:30:08","slug":"can-the-gangly-teenager-paul-seixas-save-french-cycling-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/596549\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the gangly teenager Paul Seixas save French cycling? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The old concrete velodrome in Roubaix already has its place in Irish cycling<\/a> history. It was here, lest anyone forget, where Shay Elliott completed his 3km breakaway to win stage three of the 1963 Tour de France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With that, Elliott also took the leader\u2019s 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<\/a> cycling fans adored him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a sort of revenge for me on this great classic route,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cParis-Roubaix is a horrible race to ride, but the most beautiful one to win,\u201d 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\u2019s five monument races, before winning it again in 1986. <\/p>\n

Kelly won four of the five monuments, nine in all, including Milan-San Remo (twice), Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge (twice), and Il Lombardia (three times). The only one missing from his palmar\u00e8s is the Tour of Flanders, arguably the second toughest of the lot.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday, on a cold and rainy day in the north of Belgium, Tadej Pogacar<\/a> 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\u2019s 123rd edition of Paris-Roubaix on course to become the first rider to win all five monuments in the same season.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s first home in the velodrome on Sunday, the race covering 258km and including 29 sections of the fabled granite pav\u00e9, the Slovenian rider continues to be all-conquering, from the one-day monuments to the three-week Grand Tours.<\/p>\n

\"TadejTadej 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 <\/p>\n

Some French cycling fans haven\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s putting undue pressure or expectation on Seixas, he is already revelling in it.<\/p>\n

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 Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9. At the Tour de l\u2019Avenir, considered a junior Tour de France, he won two stages as well as the overall general classification.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Former Tour de France sprint king Sam Bennett reveals he has had a heart procedureOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

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\u2019\u00c9quipe put the 19-year-old on the front page: \u201cPaul Seixas \u2013 D\u00e9j\u00e0 Grand [Already Great]\u201d.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In Monday\u2019s 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\u2019t get enough of their new baby-faced assassin.<\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul Seixas crosses the finish line of the fourth stage of the Tour of the Basque Country. Photograph: Ander Gillenea\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

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\u2019s hardly looked over his shoulder since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always say that my biggest dream is to win the Tour de France,\u201d Seixas told The Athletic in February, clearly not shy of sharing his lofty ambitions. \u201cI think it\u2019s the biggest achievement you can have as a cyclist. And then, to win the World Championships in 2027 in Haute-Savoie.\u201d<\/p>\n

No French rider has won the Tour de France since Bernard Hinault, back in 1985, and it\u2019s not yet certain Seixas will even start this summer\u2019s race, where Pogacar will be chasing his fifth title in all.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The secret agents behind keeping Tour de France riders on the roadOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Even at this stage in his career, there aren\u2019t many cycling records left for Pogacar to chase, and if he does win on Sunday, he\u2019ll become the first reigning Tour de France champion to win Paris-Roubaix since Eddy Merckx, in 1973.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The old concrete velodrome in Roubaix already has its place in Irish cycling history. It was here, lest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,637,82,1422,636],"class_list":{"0":"post-596549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tadej-pogacar","14":"tag-tour-de-france"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}