{"id":711376,"date":"2026-07-26T02:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T02:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/711376\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T02:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T02:30:14","slug":"i-cracked-paul-seixas-goes-all-in-for-the-tour-de-france-podium-but-comes-up-short-at-alpe-dhuez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/711376\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I cracked’ – Paul Seixas goes all-in for the Tour de France podium but comes up short at Alpe d’Huez"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Seixas went down swinging. Well, as far as you can categorise fourth place in the Tour de France<\/a> at 19 years of age as \u2018down\u2019.<\/p>\n

But the Frenchman dreamed of the podium and he was prepared to lay it on the line to pull it off on the Tour\u2019s final mountain stage to Alpe d\u2019Huez on Saturday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the end, though, it didn\u2019t come off, and Seixas\u2019 extraordinary second professional season<\/a> does not have the fairytale ending that was being dreamed up in his and the race\u2019s home country.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI cracked. Voil\u00e0. That\u2019s how it is,\u201d the Decathlon CMA CGM rider said amid a huge scrum of cameras and microphones at the finish of stage 20 in Alpe d\u2019Huez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seixas started the final mountain stage fourth overall, just 24 seconds down on Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who held the white jersey of best young rider as well as the final spot on the GC podium.<\/p>\n

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Decathlon CMA CGM placed a pawn up the road in US climber Matthew Riccitello, and Seixas was able to lean on an impressive performance<\/a> from Nicolas Prodhomme to set him up on the final big climb of the Col de Sarenne<\/a>. But soon after Seixas took it up himself, Del Toro – who had the luxury of yellow jersey Tadej Poga\u010dar working for him all day – moved to the fore and sent the Frenchman out of the back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to go as deep as possible, but there was a moment where I was on my limit, and I cracked,\u201d Seixas admitted.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI hoped to be stronger than usual but in the end I exploded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seixas reached Alpe d\u2019Huez nearly two minutes down on Del Toro, watching the podium slip far from view but not slipping so much as to endanger his fourth place, which he\u2019ll seal tomorrow in Paris barring incident or accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said in the team that we had nothing to lose. Today I\u2019m 4th, and yesterday I was 4th. We tried everything to crack Del Toro and he was just stronger today,\u201d Seixas said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe say we risk it all for the podium. I\u2019m still 4th so I didn\u2019t lose anything. I tried everything but the legs were not good enough, the head also. That\u2019s why I cracked after. For me it was third or nothing, and today for me it\u2019s nothing.”<\/p>\n

But it is still fourth place on debut at the Tour de France, at 19 years of age. It is, all told, still an extraordinary achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a few days, with a bit of air, there will be some pride,\u201d Seixas concluded.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! <\/a>Find out more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Seixas went down swinging. Well, as far as you can categorise fourth place in the Tour de…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-711376","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\/711376","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=711376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}