Who wants him?
According to reports and rumors, the latest team to take an active interest in signing him is Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe, who have the excellent young German Florian Lipowitz, who finished third in last year’s Tour, and who signed Remco Evenepoel in order to win the Tour de France. Have they given up on Remco already? Or is it simply the syndrome of the rich, about whom it is said that the more they have, the more they want?
Other teams reported to be actively chasing the young prodigy’s signature are INEOS Grenadiers, who signed the promising young riders Oscar Onley and Kévin Vauquelin but are evidently still searching for a superstar, and Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates–XRG, who apparently want another Pogačar to replace their current Pogačar once he retires. Does that mean they have already given up on Isaac del Toro?
Seixas is only 19 years old, which is kind of young to have such massive hype accompanying his name. But based on the races he has ridden at all levels, including the WorldTour, it’s not hype. He seems to be the real thing.
His impressive record
In 2024, Seixas won the junior Liège-Bastogne-Liège and both the national and world time-trial championships at that level. In 2025, he finished third in the adult European Road Race Championships, behind Pogačar and Evenepoel. Also last year, at age 18, he had three stage podium finishes on the Tour of the Alps, finished eighth in the Critérium du Dauphiné and won the Tour de l’Avenir.
This year, he finished second at Strade Bianche, easily won the Faun-Ardèche Classic and finished second while winning a stage in the Volta ao Algarve. His next races are the Classic La Flèche Wallonne on April 22 and, on April 26, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, where he’ll be facing Pogačar and Evenepoel. Oh boy!
Seixas’ most recent eye-opening performance was at the Itzulia Basque Country, in which he won three of the six stages, taking the opening time trial by a considerable margin and winning the two most difficult mountain stages. This is important because if you can win time trials and mountain stages, you can probably win Grand Tour races like the Tour de France. That’s very important for Seixas and for the country that hosts the Tour because Seixas is French and no French rider has won the race since 1985. Since then, there have been many French hopes who showed early promise but turned out to be not good enough to win the Tour.
It’s fair to say that none of them showed anywhere near the promise early in their careers that Seixas has. It’s probably also fair to say that not only the French, but many, if not most, cycling fans, would love to see a French rider finally win the Tour again, if only to change the conversation.
He lost his best race
His best race so far may well have been a race he lost, this year’s Strade Bianche. In that race, Pogačar attacked on the steepest section of the Monte Sante Marie white gravel sector, 79.2km from the finish, and apparently had expected to be on his own, as he usually is when he attacks. So he checked to make sure and was surprised by what he saw.
“I looked back at one point after the first steep section and [Seixas] was not that far behind. He was actually really close,” Pogačar said after the race. “So I said ‘OK’ and realized that I need to really leave it all out there and try to snap the gap. Luckily I succeeded. Otherwise, I think he would have been on the wheel.”
Seixas never really came close to him again in the race, but he lost surprisingly little ground, finishing only 1:00 behind despite the fact that for most of the final 79km he rode either alone or in front of a group and so had few chances to ride in someone’s slipstream and rest. It was a truly impressive performance for a 19-year-old riding in his second Classic against the best rider in the world. (The first Classic was the 2025 Il Lombardia, in which he finished seventh).
In addition to his superior cycling chops, Seixas has got an attitude. After winning stage 2 of the Itzulia, he told TNT Sports, “I didn’t hesitate to attack. The worst thing is being afraid to go for it. Racing like that is what I love, it’s why I ride.” He was also asked about how he handles the pressure of expectations. “Honestly, I’ve been asked that question for a long time,” he replied. “Personally, I don’t really care about the pressure. When I know I have the legs, pressure or no pressure doesn’t change anything. On the bike, it’s not about pressure, it’s just about doing what you need to do to win.”
Not a superstar yet
No wonder everybody wants him. The problem for his suitors is that Decathlon CMA CGM received a major funding boost over the winter when shipping and logistics giant CMA CGM joined on a five-year agreement and brought along roughly €10 million to €15 million annually. That raised the team’s 2026 budget to €40 million, and made it one of the top five wealthiest WorldTour teams.
In addition, Decathlon is the world’s largest sports retailer and so has buckets of cash to invest in a superstar who would further burnish its brand globally. And finally, Decathlon and CMA CGM are French companies, the team is a French team and, well, you know, Seixas is French and the Tour is French. C’est une alliance parfaite; or, it’s a match made in French heaven.
Having said that, it’s highly unlikely that Seixas will win the Tour this year or in 2027. He’s still got a lot to learn, as his bonehead move in the final stage of Itzulia Basque Country illustrated. He took off from the group he was riding with on a late descent and found himself riding alone for far too long.
“My plan was to start the downhill first and with a little gap and then they’d take me back at the end of the downhill,” he explained. “But then that wasn’t the case and there was a big gap. So at this moment I was thinking I could jump across to the front, but they were very organized and I was between two groups. I lost a lot of energy.”
No harm done. But we do have to remember that he is a teenager. That means that he’s still growing and still needs to learn to use his superpowers wisely. Only then can he think about becoming a superstar.
