"He’s a project": French talent shines in elite World Championship debut, but national coach focuses on the bigger picture

Seixas made his elite debut in the time trial. “I felt great for the first two days, but then I felt really mwah for three or four days,” he told l'Équipe about acclimatizing. “The heat started to increase, so that may have played a role. You feel that after five or six days, there is a big acclimatization cycle, when things really start to change.”

That acclimatization didn't go too badly, as Seixas managed to take silver in the Mixed Relay on Wednesday, the day he turned nineteen, thanks to an excellent time trial. Four days later, it was time for the main event, the road race. “A new challenge for me,” said the Frenchman about the nearly 270 kilometers that awaited him.

We saw him very early on, with about 245 kilometers to go, at the front. An acceleration caused a wave of new accelerations. Among others, Isaac Del Toro came out of his shell early on. Seixas didn't even have to pay for that early acceleration, as he would lead the chase behind the Pogacar-Del Toro-Ayuso trio in the Mur de Kigali.

He was unable to keep up with the best, but he was far from collapsing entirely. Seixas eventually crossed the finish line in thirteenth place, which is an excellent performance for his elite debut. "I tried to persevere and give everything for a top-10 finish. Rarely have I experienced such agony; it was perhaps the hardest race of my life."

Seixas indeed passed his elite debut with flying colors, something he knew well in advance. "Because I knew so early on, everything had time to mature. I immediately felt at ease with Thomas (Voeckler, the national coach, ed.), whose vision resonated with me, so I seized the opportunity. Ever since I was a child, it has been my dream to compete in an elite World Championship. The fact that I can do that now is wonderful."

“I don't put too much pressure on myself, I just want to perform well,” were the words of the young Frenchman, with which Voeckler agrees. “Paul is not a selection, he is a project,” said the national coach earlier this year. “Do I have high expectations of him in the future with the French team? Yes,” he added in Rwanda.

“You have to be stubborn to see this in the short term,” Voeckler explains his long-term plans. “It's that simple, but he's certainly not the only one. After all, it doesn't bother me that there's a lot of talk about Paul Seixas, that we expect a lot from him; he has to go his own way.”

"It's the start of a slightly longer project, it's interesting," Seixas himself reflects on those words. "I wanted to discover how the French team works, and Thomas too, so that I'm ready for what's to come. As far as I can see, it's an environment that suits me. It's good to be able to ride as many races as possible with the team."

“It's also good to gain that experience for the future,” explains the Decathlon top talent. “It will be useful to me in the coming years, should I ever have to take on a different role.” With next year's World Championships in Montreal set to be particularly tough, the prognosis is good for Seixas in any case.