{"id":613564,"date":"2026-04-19T02:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/613564\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T02:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:04:08","slug":"christian-prudhomme-highly-optimistic-about-paul-seixas-racing-the-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/613564\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Prudhomme highly optimistic about Paul Seixas racing the Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nSeixas recently claimed a massive overall victory at the Itzulia Basque Country<\/a>, becoming the first French rider to win a World Tour stage race since Christophe Moreau won the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 way back in 2007. Despite this monumental achievement, Seixas is still keeping his cards close to his chest regarding his participation in July.While the young rider maintains the suspense, Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme<\/a> is not shying away from making bold predictions. In a recent interview<\/a>, Prudhomme explained why he firmly believes the cycling world will see the young prodigy at the start of the Tour.<\/p>\n

“There is a 90% chance. […] I have the feeling that he is going to come,” Prudhomme assured during the podcast. “What I sense from the various discussions is that a few weeks ago the team was wondering why he should be at the Tour, and now they are desperately looking for reasons not to put him in the Tour.”<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/p>\n

Paul Seixas won the GC plus 3 stages at the Itzulia Basque Country 2026<\/p>\n

A solo masterclass that changed everything<\/p>\n

Earlier in the season, Prudhomme was perfectly fine with the idea of giving the teenager more time to develop. However, a specific performance completely altered the Tour director’s perspective. Before his Basque triumph, Seixas delivered a stunning ride in the Ard\u00e8che region that proved he could drop the elite riders of the peloton through pure strength.<\/p>\n

“I was saying until February, before he won in Ard\u00e8che, that if he doesn’t come, we won’t hold it against him,” Prudhomme admitted. “But after his solo breakaway of 42 kilometers, distancing some of the best riders in the world, my view has changed.”<\/p>\n

Riding well in one-day races or one-week events is very different from surviving the brutal three-week marathon of the Tour de France. Prudhomme observed Seixas’s tactics during the Tour of the Basque Country and concluded that the youngster was actively testing his own physical limits.<\/p>\n

“He made a maximum effort, not just to win the race, but also to put himself in conditions to ask: ‘Am I capable of holding up over time?'” Prudhomme explained. “I think that in certain attacks, he wanted to do everything to tire himself out.”<\/p>\n

Before making any final decisions about July, Seixas will continue to test himself against the absolute best in the upcoming Ardennes Classics. The French sensation is currently preparing to line up for La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne on April 22, followed by the Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge on April 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seixas recently claimed a massive overall victory at the Itzulia Basque Country, becoming the first French rider…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,129781,635,175513,141519,82,636],"class_list":{"0":"post-613564","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-christian-prudhomme","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-itzulia-basque-country","13":"tag-paul-seixas","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tour-de-france"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613564","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=613564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}