Paul Seixas has been exploring some of the roads of the 2026 Tour de France ahead of his highly anticipated debut in July, clocking in some serious efforts up the Col du Tourmalet, which will feature during the sixth stage.
The French super talent headed for the Pyrenees last weekend, fresh from his altitude camp in Sierra Nevada, where he took in just under 2000km and 50,000m of elevation gain across his 16 days of intense training.
Ahead of his next race at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes – what was the Critérium du Dauphiné – Seixas did a recon of the climbs which will feature on stage 6 of this year's Tour, from Pau to Gavarnie-Gédre. The key ascents will be up the Col d'Aspin (12km at 6.5%) and the iconic Col du Tourmalet (17.1km at 7.3%).
Seixas rode 137km on Saturday and 90km on Sunday, the latter of which saw him take several segment KOMs on Strava, including a 10.1km stretch from Luz St Sauveur to Super Barreges, which goes up the side of the Tourmalet that the riders will descend on stage 6.
He took the record from Lenny Martinez, who rode it in exactly 26 minutes during stage 14 of last year's Tour de France, and Seixas was 35 seconds faster, averaging 23.9kph up the 6.9% average gradient.
Training climbs will never translate exactly to how they will be taken on during races, with the added stresses of the peloton, the occasion, and the lead-up to the main ascents all playing a part. What's more, not all riders upload their data to Strava, so these are not official climbing records.
However, this is a continuation of Sexias' all-out preparation for his debut Tour de France, and another sign of his enormous talent.
Seixas' Tour de France chances will become clearer at the newly-named Dauphiné
Seixas is expected to challenge the established stars Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel at his maiden appearance, having improved at a rapid rate since joining Decathlon CMA CGM's WorldTour squad at the start of 2025.
He's already won Itzulia Basque Country in dominant fashion and La Flèche Wallonne this season, also finished second at Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège behind only Pogačar in the Classics, so he has more than earned the attention.
France has been without a men's Tour de France winner for 41 years, so the expectation on 19-year-old Seixas' shoulders is immense. He'll feel the full brunt of it during his final warm-up at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (the renamed Critérium du Dauphiné) from this Sunday, where he'll be the favourite to win the important pre-Tour form-marker, with none of his main Tour de France rivals on the start line.
Pogačar has opted to ride the Tour de Suisse as his final warm-up race, Vingegaard will head to altitude after some rest, having just won the Giro d'Italia in dominant fashion, and Evenepoel is focusing all of his time on training instead of racing.
He'll be up against stiff competition still, in the form of UAE Team Emirates-XRG duo Isaac del Toro and João Almeida, and Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), who beat him earlier this season at the Volta ao Algarve.
Seixas impressed last season by finishing eighth overall on debut as an 18-year-old, but will be looking to go seven better with victory. He'd be the first French rider to win the Dauphiné since Christophe Moreau in 2007, who is the only French rider to win it this century, also taking the crown in 2001.
When Seixas makes his Tour debut at the Grand Départ in Barcelona on July 4, he will be thrown straight into the baptism of fire, with a team time trial on stage 1, a punchy stage on day 2, and then the first tests in the Pyrenees on stage 3 and stage 6, where he completed these latest recons. If he can win the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes next week, the expectation and the pressure will only magnify.
