{"id":604983,"date":"2026-05-26T15:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604983\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T15:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:37:09","slug":"37000m-of-elevation-gain-in-two-weeks-how-super-talent-paul-seixas-is-ramping-up-his-training-ahead-of-highly-anticipated-tour-de-france-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604983\/","title":{"rendered":"37,000m of elevation gain in two weeks \u2013 How super talent Paul Seixas is ramping up his training ahead of highly anticipated Tour de France debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahead of one of the most anticipated Tour de France<\/a> debuts in recent memory, 19-year-old French super talent Paul Seixas<\/a> has been ramping up his training, taking in 1,489km and more than 37,000 metres of elevation gain at altitude camp in the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

In 12 days, Seixas will return to racing for the first time since he almost pushed Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> past his limits at Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge, at what was the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 \u2013 now renamed the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes \u2013 as part of his final build-up for the Tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Seixas has been alongside several Decathlon CMA CGM teammates during his time in the Sierra Nevada in Spain, such as Leo Bisaux, Aur\u00e9lien Paret-Peintre, Nicolas Prodhomme, Matthew Riccitello and Stefan Bissegger.<\/p>\n

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Over the 13 days of training so far, Seixas has logged rides as short as 24.7km on his Strava profile, but as long as 231.61km last Saturday on a brutal seven-hour day at an average speed of 32.7km, where he and four teammates completed 5,092m of elevation gain.<\/p>\n

There have been two ‘rest’ days so far, although he has ridden his bike on those days, and up significant climbs. As well as the monster ride on Saturday, there was a double session on May 19, with two separate rides on the same day totalling 161.76 km and almost 5,000 metres of elevation gain.<\/p>\n

For comparison to Seixas’ training load, across the three weeks of racing at the Giro that Vingegaard is 15 stages into, 3,459km will be raced, with 49,150 metres of elevation along the way.<\/p>\n

Despite his age, Seixas has long been training as an elite senior rider would, and it’s clear to see how his professionalism as a teenager has stood him in good stead to be already performing alongside the best riders in the world.<\/p>\n

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Seixas’ training camp so farSwipe to scroll horizontally<\/p>\n

Day<\/p>\n

Distance<\/p>\n

Elevation Gain<\/p>\n

Day 1<\/p>\n

67.94 km<\/p>\n

2,135 m<\/p>\n

Day 2<\/p>\n

105.97 km<\/p>\n

2,793 m<\/p>\n

Day 3<\/p>\n

101.74 km<\/p>\n

3,348 m<\/p>\n

Day 4<\/p>\n

167.56 km<\/p>\n

3,036 m<\/p>\n

Day 5<\/p>\n

24.37 km<\/p>\n

731 m<\/p>\n

Day 6<\/p>\n

149.62 km<\/p>\n

2,633 m<\/p>\n

Day 7<\/p>\n

161.76 km<\/p>\n

4,885 m<\/p>\n

Day 8<\/p>\n

159.54 km<\/p>\n

3,239 m<\/p>\n

Day 9<\/p>\n

26.26 km<\/p>\n

895 m<\/p>\n

Day 10<\/p>\n

109.44 km<\/p>\n

3,614 m<\/p>\n

Day 11<\/p>\n

231.61 km<\/p>\n

5,092 m<\/p>\n

Day 12<\/p>\n

28.61 km<\/p>\n

968 m<\/p>\n

Day 13<\/p>\n

154.82 km<\/p>\n

3,749 m<\/p>\n

The next step in a meteoric rise<\/p>\n

Having taken a massive step up at the backend of last season, finishing on the podium of the European Championships road race behind only Poga\u010dar and Remco Evenepoel, Seixas has only kicked on into his second year on Decathlon’s WorldTour team.<\/p>\n

He’s won a stage of the Volta ao Algarve, the Faun-Ard\u00e8che Classic, three stages and the overall at Itzulia Basque Country, and La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne, alongside finishing as runner-up behind Poga\u010dar at Strade Bianche and Li\u00e8ge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seixas will have a great chance to test himself at the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes, albeit without any of the main favourites for the Tour set to start in the prestigious French one-week race. Poga\u010dar is instead racing the Tour de Suisse, Jonas Vingegaard is currently racing and winning the Giro d’Italia<\/a>, Evenepoel is opting for a longer training block over racing, and Florian Lipowitz is taking on the Tour of Slovenia as his final Tour prep.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar’s UAE teammates and expected superdomestiques for the Tour, Isaac del Toro and Jo\u00e3o Almeida, will likely start the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes as Seixas’ main competitors, alongside one of their former teammates, Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), for what should be eight days of great racing decided on the closing two mountain days to the Grand Colombier and Plateau de Solaison.<\/p>\n

Seixas at 18 was already among the top riders in last year’s edition of the renamed Dauphin\u00e9, taking eighth on GC, but his improvement since then has been monumental. While that’s mostly been seen as a one-day racer, his complete domination of Itzulia Basque Country suggests he should be the heavy favourite from June 7.<\/p>\n

The subsequent debut at the Tour will prove vital for Seixas, not only due to the expectation of the French media and public, after their 40-year wait for a new men’s winner, but also because of the implications it should have for his future.<\/p>\n

Currently contracted until the end of 2027, Seixas is due to stay at Decathlon until at least January 2028, but every super team in the sport is currently after his signature<\/a>, which would secure them the current top rising talent in the sport.<\/p>\n

Whether anyone can lure him out of his current deal before its conclusion is unknown, but a top performance<\/a> at his first Tour could well force the biggest players to offer him a massive money deal away from the French squad who have overseen his development.<\/p>\n

19-year-olds don’t tend to start the Tour this early in their career \u2013 Seixas is set to become the youngest rider to start a Tour in 89 years at the Grand D\u00e9part in Barcelona \u2013 but starting as a potential podium finisher is unheard of. All eyes will be on Seixas come that fateful day, but for the moment, he’s ensuring no stone is left unturned in his preparation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead of one of the most anticipated Tour de France debuts in recent memory, 19-year-old French super talent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-604983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}