Seixas faces major mental challenge ahead of a season full of Pogacar duels (and the Tour?)

The climbing group of the ultra-ambitious French squad is spending this month at an altitude camp in Sierra Nevada, just like — among others — Wout van Aert and Uno-X Mobility. Yet because of miserable conditions, Seixas and his teammates have been forced onto the indoor trainer for a large part of the camp, which is probably not what the team had in mind.

It has been one of the stories of this winter for weeks now. The weather in Sierra Nevada has been awful: snowfall and black ice have made the roads barely rideable. Several teams have been stuck indoors, rather than training outside in the Spanish sun. “You have to be mentally strong, but we’re holding on,” Seixas told L'Equipe about it.

A week before Seixas is due to begin his season at the Tour of the Algarve, the conditions in Spain are far from ideal. Coach Alexandre Abel can hardly believe what he’s seeing. “This is my fifteenth year as a coach and I’ve never experienced this. At one point we asked ourselves: is it even worth continuing this training camp? In consultation with the riders, we ultimately decided to finish it.”

Besides the dreadful weather, the French top talent is also adjusting to being away from home for long stretches — even if he knows what it’s all for. “It’s been two months since I’ve seen my parents or my girlfriend. But we know why we’re doing it: these are sacrifices we make for better performances. When you get back down, you really feel the difference,” Seixas said to Eurosport.

Even with the poor conditions, the numbers Seixas is producing in Sierra Nevada are, according to Abel, exceptional. “The tests that have been carried out on him show parameters you only see in the very best athletes.” That’s encouraging ahead of his first season as a leader, because there is a lot waiting for the winner of the 2025 Tour de l’Avenir.

2025 was also the year Seixas truly broke through at elite level. He rode an excellent Tour of the Alps, finished eighth at the Critérium du Dauphiné, took bronze in the French national time trial championships, and after winning the Tour de l’Avenir he went on to place 13th at a brutal World Championships road race. Perhaps his finest result came at the European Championships on home soil: third, behind Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel.

In March, Seixas will already cross swords with Pogacar again — at Strade Bianche. “That could be a Monument, I’d say. It’s a bit of an atypical race,” team boss Sébastien Joly told IDLProCycling.com in November. With Seixas’ background in cyclo-cross, the youngster knows what to expect. “And we’ll prepare for it specifically, in any case.”

“It’s a race that’s really close to my heart,” Seixas said at the team presentation about the Tuscan gravel classic. It will be the start of his spring campaign, after which he plans to continue through to Liège. “My spring is interesting on multiple fronts. The year ends with, hopefully, the World Championships in Canada, and then the Tour of Lombardy as the finale,” Seixas looked further ahead.

What has France talking most, though, is that the Tour de France was not explicitly mentioned. Still, both Seixas and the team were reluctant to say too much about it at the presentation. “My dream is to ride the Tour one day. Whether that happens this year will depend on whether it makes sense to do it. The most important thing is my progression,” Seixas said, sounding impressively mature. When will we get a definitive answer? “After Liège,” Joly confirmed.

Seixas will race, among other events, the Tour of the Basque Country and La Flèche Wallonne — a strong programme — and his objectives are clear: “I want to win.” Where? That isn’t the main issue. “Whether it’s a stage somewhere or a one-day race: I want to win. Maybe that’s ambitious, because these are big races. But I want to keep developing this year. That’s also an important goal.”

So Seixas is putting pressure on himself — and in France, that pressure is always amplified. The home of the Tour has been searching for a successor to Bernard Hinault since 1985, and with a talent like Seixas, that suddenly feels possible again. Decathlon will have to handle that spotlight, although Joly doesn’t think the team is overprotecting him.

“Before and after races, he has a natural way of answering questions,” the French team boss explained. Seixas did a media day in Paris at the end of 2025 and made time for plenty of interviews. “So I don’t think we protect him too much. We’re looking for the right balance and we communicate well. For him, the most important thing is to put that pressure to one side. That went well in 2025, and it will go well again this year.”