\u201cSeixas! Seix-as! Seix-as! Seix-as!\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Seixas is making his push for the Tour de France podium \u2014 and they could probably hear the home crowd on Le Markstein all the way over in Paris.<\/p>\n
The sound of the finish line fans cheering and banging on the advertising hoardings Saturday as he climbed the podium after stage 14 showed that Seixas-mania is growing.<\/p>\n
He fought back to the wheel of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) as he crossed the final climb, the first-category Col du Haag. Showing his zip at the finish, Seixas stuck to Isaac del Toro (Team UAE Emirates-XRG) in their three-man sprint on Le Markstein to finish third. Vingegaard was gapped and lost six seconds.<\/p>\n
Decathlon-CMA CGM Team\u2018s leader Seixas was the day\u2019s big GC leaper. He ended the day moving up two places to fourth overall, 5:19 behind leader Poga\u010dar. He is right on the shoulder of third-placed Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who is just 15 seconds ahead.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old also unseated Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) from the white jersey by three seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course we always dream, but it\u2019s a dream I\u2019m living,\u201d Seixas told media, including Velo<\/i>, post-race. \u201cAnd for the moment, it\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\nSteady Seixas benefits from patience<\/h2>\n
\u201cI felt great. I want to thank the team for the work they did, they put me in the right place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be strong in the head and then I just managed my effort. I was feeling strong. So, I\u2019m really looking forward to tomorrow, I guess we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a ride which belied the Frenchman\u2019s tender years and inexperience compared to his established rivals. When Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) attacked with 11 kilometers to go, Seixas briefly followed before pacing himself.<\/p>\n
The German might have regretted it: Lipowitz labored as Seixas accelerated minutes later, a picture of energy, after Vingegaard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to manage my effort. Maybe we are different types of climbers. I manage more, maybe he goes full in the start,\u201d Seixas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly don\u2019t know what he was doing, but at first, I saw \u2018he follows, he\u2019s really strong\u2019. I just managed my effort differently. I took some time on him and he\u2019s a really strong rider so it\u2019s good for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar pushed on by Seixas quality<\/h2>\n
Even race leader Tadej Poga\u010dar is being kept hungry by the sport\u2019s insanely-talented teenager. \u201cWhen he followed me on La Redoute in Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge, I think that gave me a little bit more motivation for the Tour,\u201d Poga\u010dar said post-race.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother push. I was like \u2018this young kid will give me trouble in the Tour, for sure.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Seixas emerged to speak to media with a white medical face mask matching his cap and new jersey. You can\u2019t be too careful when it comes to preventing sickness on the Tour.<\/p>\n
He had never done a race longer than eight days before this Tour. Tomorrow will be his 15th stage of racing, but it looks like so far, so good.<\/p>\n
A Tour of discovery<\/h2>\n
\u201cFor sure, there was an unknown [element] for these two and three weeks of the race; we\u2019re not in the third week yet, so let\u2019s be careful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you have to know too that we\u2019re professional cyclists. We train very hard, we do training camps at altitude for three weeks and that doesn\u2019t kill us either.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve done more volume than last year, so I can recover better. For now, it\u2019s ok and we\u2019ll see the next days.\u201d<\/p>\n
So the big question hanging over the rest of the race after another third place: what does Seixas want from this Tour?<\/p>\n
The white jersey, second place, or a podium spot are all within reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor now, if it can continue like this, if I can have good legs, make good efforts, manage my climbing efforts well and continue to pay back the team [for their work], then I think it\u2019s very good.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2286019329-scaled.jpg”] Andy McGrath Updated July 18, 2026 12:46PM \u201cSeixas! Seix-as! Seix-as! Seix-as!\u201d Paul Seixas is making his push for the Tour de France podium \u2014 and they could probably hear the home crowd on Le Markstein all the way over in Paris. The sound of the finish line fans cheering and banging on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2051305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2051305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2051305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2051305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2051305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}