OK he didn’t specifically say ‘this year‘ but, it got your attention…

French team manager Monsieur Madiot described Seixas – just 19, 2nd at Strade on Saturday (WTHF) –  as the ‘Chosen One’  – meaning the one to end France’s 41-year drought at the Tour de France, when Bernard Hinault won the race in  1985.

To put this into context, I was 13 then, and will be 54 when the Tour rolls around again this year…

“For me, he’s already in the top 5 or 6 in the world – Tadej Pogačar, Isaac Del Toro, Jonas Vingegaard, Paul Seixas, Mathieu Van der Poel, and Remco Evenepoel. Seixas has something that others don’t have, or that few have, like Pogačar. Messi also already had something that others didn’t have when he started kicking a ball. For now, we don’t see any weaknesses in Seixas. He has everything. We expect him to win the Tour [some time] and be able to lead the peloton.”

Why is Madiot making such comments?

Because this kid is scary good… and we need to remember that he is a kid – in 2024 he won the Junior World TT Champs – junior!

And on March 2nd, just gone, he won the Faun-Ardèche Classic in France. In doing so, he equaled the climbing record set by Pogačar at the European Championships on the

– amazing – but not as amazing as his descending. 

He descended the same climb 16 seconds faster than Pogačar, and also went down two seconds quicker than MadHatter Matej with The Hatej Mohoric of Beep-Victorious.

In action at the Faun-Ardèche.

Furthermore, he is stronger than Pogacar was at his age, or at least Strade seems to suggest that. At 20, the Slovenian finished 30th at Strade in 2019, and it took him three more tries to score his first victory there – which makes Seixas’s 2nd place on Saturday look all the more incredible. 

The young Frenchman is not yet committed 100% to riding the Tour this year – but all of France is desperate for him to do so.

Can he beat Pogacar to France’s first Yellow Jersey in 41 years?

Probably not – this year, that is – yet remarkable as it might seem to say, he could come 2nd, and he could win a stage or two. A couple of things are against him though, and they the lack of depth in his team and his lack of experience in a race like the Tour.

Pogacar won it at 21 and 365 days of youth – Seixas’s birthday falls on September 24th, so he has three attempts in total to beat Pogi to become the youngest in the modern age to win Le Grand Boucle and set France alight.

Would you bet against him?