{"id":660945,"date":"2026-06-27T10:29:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T10:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/660945\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T10:29:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T10:29:19","slug":"i-wouldnt-dare-say-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/660945\/","title":{"rendered":"I wouldn\u2019t dare say that"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With just days to go before the start of the 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/tour-de-france\" title=\"Tour de France\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tour de France<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/alberto-contador\" title=\"Alberto Contador\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alberto Contador<\/a> analyzed for Eurosport \u2014 the network where he will again commentate on the French race in Spain \u2014 the role one of cycling\u2019s breakout sensations, <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/paul-seixas\" title=\"Paul Seixas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Seixas<\/a>, could play, while also running through the list of favourites for the yellow jersey.&#8217;El Pistolero&#8217; believes the huge hype surrounding the young French talent does not have to become a problem, since, in his view, the greatest pressure always comes from the rider himself <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/tour-de-france\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">at the Grande Boucle<\/a>.\u201cI actually think it could even be an extra motivation. The pressure a champion puts on himself is infinitely greater than what comes from the outside \u2014 the papers, the public, the fans, television\u2026 The pressure you put on yourself, because you\u2019re ambitious and you want to win, is always far bigger than what comes from outside,\u201d he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurosport.es\/ciclismo\/tour-de-francia\/2026\/alberto-contador-no-ve-imposible-que-paul-seixas-pueda-ganar-a-pogacar-vingegaard-no-me-atrevo_sto23313179\/story.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Eurosport<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Contador is a rider with plenty experience in the field of Grand Tours and back when he began, he was also someone who reached great heights in the three-week races at a young age &#8211; for that time period.<\/p>\n<p>Pogacar and Vingegaard start a step ahead<\/p>\n<p>When naming the main contenders for overall victory, Contador was clear that Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard remain the chief references given their records in the race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there are riders on merit, like Tadej Pogacar, who has won four, or Vingegaard himself, who has won two, who are theoretically ahead of him as bigger favourites, since he\u2019s still an unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Spaniard believes Seixas\u2019 lack of experience in a three-week race keeps him an unknown quantity for the general classification, though he admits the Frenchman\u2019s talent means no scenario can be ruled out.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/paul-seixas-6a3e3ba9d88cf.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto h-auto\" alt=\"Paul Seixas will make his debut at the Tour de France\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Paul Seixas will make his debut at the Tour de France\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Contador does not exclude Seixas from any battle<\/p>\n<p>Precisely because of the potential the young Frenchman has shown, Contador stopped short of closing the door on a historic victory on debut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut to dare say it\u2019s impossible for Paul Seixas to win the Tour, I\u2019m sorry, I wouldn\u2019t dare say that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His comments reflect both the respect inspired by Pogacar and Vingegaard\u2019s recent dominance and the high regard Seixas already commands even before tackling his first Tour de France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With just days to go before the start of the 2026 Tour de France, Alberto Contador analyzed for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[116280,4985,112065,101,6549,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-660945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-alberto-contador","tag-cycling","tag-paul-seixas","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-france","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660945","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=660945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}