Seixas returns to racing with Tour-worthy team, aiming for dominant victory

Paul Seixas is returning to racing this weekend. The Frenchman from Decathlon CMA CGM will line up at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes after a break filled with a training camp at altitude. The French team is sending a decidedly Tour-worthy squad with the clear aim of winning the Tour de France warm-up race.

The 19-year-old Seixas already made a name for himself in last year’s Critérium du Dauphiné, where he finished a fine eighth as a neo-pro. This year he has continued that upward curve in extraordinary fashion, with victories in La Flèche Wallonne and the Tour of the Basque Country, plus second places in Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

After the spring, he headed into the Pyrenees for a training camp at altitude, where he reportedly produced remarkable numbers. “I am looking at this Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes with a lot of ambition after three weeks at altitude,” Seixas says in a press release. “This week is very important for me because I can compare my feelings, especially in terms of recovery, with last year. Then I was eighth.”

Seixas was clear about his ambitions, as he is ahead of the French stage race. “It’s roads I know well, the roads of my home region. I will go for the win, and hope to build further on the foundations we have laid together with the whole team at the start of the year, towards the Tour de France.”

The young leader starts the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes with a very strong team around him. Daan Hoole is included, and will do his work on the flat and in the hilly stages. The same goes for Swiss rouleur Stefan Bissegger. When the racing gets harder, Seixas can rely on countrymen Aurélien Paret-Peintre and Léo Bisiaux.

For the real high mountains, Decathlon CMA CGM will also bring Nicolas Prodhomme and Matthew Riccitello. The latter American is new to the team after moving from NSN, where he finished fifth in the Vuelta a España, and he was already riding in support of Seixas in the Basque Country. In other races, he has been allowed to do his own thing, winning the Tour de la Provence and the Tour du Jura.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]