If there were no surprises as to the top two performers in the elite men’s Road European Championships road race on Sunday, French cycling was logically buzzing with 19-year-old Paul Seixas’ sensational ride on home soil to a bronze medal alongside winner Tadej Pogačar and runner-up Remco Evenepoel.
Despite his young age and mid-season sickness, the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale racer has already taken a knock-out triumph in the Tour de l’Avenir in 2025, as well as an eighth place overall in the Critérium du Dauphiné, his first top ten on GC in a WorldTour stage race.
But taking the third spot in an event rated by many as even harder than the Kigali Road World Championships course – where Seixas was 13th, his country’s top finisher – has seen him set the bar even higher.
Not even Juan Ayuso, viewed as Spain’s best new option for taking on Evenepoel and co. was able to stay with Seixas in the ultra-difficult finale in France’s Drôme-Ardèche. His ride to bronze has duly received major coverage in the French specialist media, with L’Équipe making the Europeans’ podium its front page photo on Monday, and its main headline ‘Paul Seixas – Déja Grand’ [Already Big] making it very clear why they were so impressed with Sunday’s race result.
Voeckler explained that the initial strategy had been to work for Romain Grégoire, winner of the Faun-Ardèche Classic in the same region this spring, and at 22, another top up-and-coming name for the French. But instead, it was a rider three years Grégoire’s junior who gave the host nation their best result.
Voeckler explained that while initially he had told Seixas not to work with the chasers behind Pogačar – something criticised later by Ayuso – he finally opted to give the 19-year-old the green light once it had become clear that Grégoire would not be able to bridge across to the Seixas group.
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