Paul Seixas, who will be the youngest participant in the Tour de France in 89 years, is set to keep raising French fans’ expectations at the newly rebranded WorldTour Critérium du Dauphiné, the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, starting Sunday. In 2024, Canada’s Derek Gee-West won a stage, wore the yellow leader’s jersey and finished third on GC, but this early-June race is not on his program for 2026.
At 19, Seixas has never ridden a Grand Tour before, but his Pogacar-esque season has prompted Decathlon-CMA-CGS to toss the Frenchman into the Tour de France fray. He took three stages of the Itzulia Basque Country while running away with the GC, beating runner-up Florian Lipowitz by 2:30. Seixas then pounced to victory on the Mur at La Fleche Wallonne before coming second to Pogacar in Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
Other Tour de France-bound riders out to stop Seixas from taking the trophy are Juan Ayuso, whose first campaign for Lidl-Trek has been mixed, and Isaac del Toro, who won both the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico, finished on the podium of Strade Bianche and then crashed out of Itzulia Basque Country. Kévin Vauquelin has three 2026 stage race top-10s out of three for new outfit Netcompany-Ineos. Matteo Jorgenson had been used sparingly by Visma this year, and he’ll be rarin’ to go. Expect Dani Martinez and Tobias Halland Johannessen to also feature in the reckoning.
Wout van Aert will race too. In mid-April he delighted the cycling world by winning Paris-Roubaix and has done no races since except winning a Gravel World Series contest in the Netherlands.
Rhône-Alpes contenders not going to the Tour are Vauquelin’s teammate Oscar Onley and João Almeida, the latter of whom was supposed to provide Giro d’Italia competition for Jonas Vingegaard, but illness forced him regroup with an eye on challenging Felix Gall and Primož Roglič at August’s Vuelta a España.
So far the only Canadian on the start list is Alpecin-Premier Tech’s Hugo Houle
The eight-stage race is always a hilly, if not mountainous affair. There is a considerable team time trial on Stage 3, and the Queen Stage on the penultimate day ends on HC-rated, Jura-range nightmare Grand Colombier.
Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes runs from June 7 to 14.
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