Sergeant and Van Avermaet give Seixas opposite Tour de France advice: 'There is a real chance he will hit his limits.'

Will he or won't he? The debate over a potential Tour de France debut for Paul Seixas rumbles on. The French talent produced extraordinary things this spring — but will that form earn him a debut in the biggest race of all? Greg Van Avermaet and Marc Sergeant have weighed in to the debate for Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad. And, like everyone else, the two Belgians cannot agree.

First, Van Avermaet, who rode the Tour nine times during his career. His advice is unambiguous: no Tour this year, the Vuelta instead, then a Tour debut in 2027. His reasoning? "As a French rider in a French team, the pressure at the Tour will be enormous. If you get a puncture, there will be twenty journalists at the finish wanting to know what happened."

Social media adds another layer. "You also have an obligation to your sponsors to film content — something that is much less demanding at other races." And then there is the racing itself. "At the Vuelta, you need to be in position 40 kilometres from the finish. At the Tour, you have to start fighting for position 100 kilometres out."

The former Olympic champion sees the Tour as a different animal altogether. "You should not underestimate what it means to be focused every single day for three weeks as a GC rider, with no room for error. And then there is the pressure the rider puts on himself — plus the pressure from the team. Leaders earn big money, and in return they are expected to deliver."

Seixas is also still only 19, which raises physical questions. "You cannot underestimate the impact of a Grand Tour on a 19-year-old's body. I'm not expecting major problems with Seixas specifically — but if he goes for the GC, there is a real chance he will hit his limits."

Van Avermaet points to a fellow Belgian as a cautionary tale: Remco Evenepoel. "We have already seen it with him — the body saying: 'Stop, this is too much.' And there is something else I think matters: you have to keep a rider hungry. If you serve him the main course straight away, what is left?"

Sergeant sees it entirely differently. "He will never be able to go to the Tour with less pressure than this year. He can do nothing wrong, precisely because he is still so young. If it goes badly, he can say: 'Maybe it was a bit early, but I came here to learn.'"

"If he rides the Tour for the first time as a 21-year-old and it disappoints, people will quickly say: 'He has been a professional for three years and still fell through the ice.' He will never be able to start with lower expectations than right now," Sergeant continues. "And the experience he can gain this year is enormously important. The Tour is a circus like nothing else. He can discover all of that now, while the stakes are lower."

On the physical side, Sergeant is equally relaxed. "I am fairly certain he will come through the Tour well. When you see how he performs day after day at the Tour of the Basque Country — a very hard race — I don't think you can assume he will crack in the Tour. And if he genuinely feels bad, he can simply abandon. Especially with the data monitoring they have now, the right decision can easily be made."