Is Paul Seixas going to overhaul Tadej Pogačar? He came closer than most yesterday. It would be valuable to know but absent any predictive certainty just asking the question is enough to make Seixas the most valuable rider about to come on the market.
His contract runs to the end of 2027 which means now is the time to discuss 2028 and beyond. Seixas and his agent Joona Lauka can name their price. Of course he’s untested in a grand tour of course but the point to emphasise is not what he’s done or even doing but what he could do. Being the last to fold before Pogačar rode away yesterday was impressive, more so since he was blocked by the UAE team in moments and apparently had stomach cramps. Then he placed several attacks and finally escaped with Isaac Del Toro who he towed to Siena and then rode away from the Mexican despite all this work.
The mere possibility that Seixas could dethrone Pogačar makes him an enticing proposition in the way that Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Tom Pidcock and Juan Ayuso aren’t quite because they’ve tried and come up short. They’re still among the best of the rest, exciting, marketable and earn millions a year. But come 2028 can they knock Pogačar off his perch?
Signing Seixas offers an option on this, much in the way an AI start-up is worth more than an established software giant. He may never surpass Pogačar but his trajectory suggests it is possible. Again to stress it’s not what he’s done, nor what he will do….but what he could do. If you were picking a fantasy team now for the 2028-2030 Tour de France who would be your first pick? It would take a contrarian streak not to pick Seixas today.
Spring 2026 is the time to plan for 2028 because budgets need to be in place and the bigger the rider the more they’re central to the team and its budget. There are more and more exceptions with riders breaking contracts to move teams which require resources to be rustled up more quickly but generally teams want to lock in their main riders early. Plenty of teams are arranging signings for 2027 now, even if they can’t be official contracts under UCI rules until 1 August. Take Kévin Vauquelin who signed with Ineos last spring as a concrete example. A bigger deal will be done earlier.
UAE are obviously interested but congested. One reason Seixas rode Strade Bianche last weekend was because he wanted to test himself against Pogačar and now he’ll have a taste for trying to topple him. It’s less “if you can’t beat them, join them” and more “if you can beat them, why join them?”. UAE have the money but signing Seixas would create issues for the likes of Del Toro, Almeida, Christen who see their role as anointed successors to Pogačar or Plan B leaders for when the Slovenian isn’t racing but that would be their problem with UAE management paid to deliver wins first and manage moods later.
Other teams will look on but who can get involved in the bidding? Red Bull have spent big on Evenepoel and Lipowitz already; Lidl-Trek paid a fortune to spring Ayuso out of UAE. Ineos could suit, especially if French sponsor Total Energies funds a move. Richard Plugge needs a replacement for Visma but if he lands a giant then that’s a possibility too.
Decathlon-CMA CGM have a good chance to retain him. The project is working well for all sides and French sponsors will pay a premium for a French winner; already the team has added sponsors like recruitment agency Addeco and the buzz could bring in more backing. Decathlon own the team and so have more than a marketing budget; shipping company CMA CGM want good publicity but Rodolphe Saadé takes a personal interest in sports sponsorships and so could see beyond normal marketing metrics. One issue for them is the French payroll taxes where they’ll have to pay millions more than other teams but little stops the team from registering its legal HQ in, say, Switzerland and doing this today would fund the retention of Seixas alone, to borrow Lampedusa it’d be a “if we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change” outcome.
All this may feel very premature. Understandable but there’s a particular combination of circumstances with Seixas looking irresistible right now and his contract being a live issue to resolve. Plus shaking hands with him today doesn’t mean giving him a bigger contract than Pogačar, any deal is likely to feature pay rises linked to performances and longevity.
Another factor in the fear of missing out is who else is hot property? It’s possible that the likes of Lorenzo Finn, Hector Alvarez, Jakob Omrzel or someone not even on our radar blossoms this year and looks as exciting. Or that Seixas continues to grow and bulks up to the point where even ASO runs out of 5-6% climbs. But that’s the future. Today all eyes are on Seixas.
Conclusion
Time well tell what more Seixas can win beyond a stage of the Algarve and the Faun Ardèche Classic. But he’s at the point now where he looks so promising several teams will be racing to lure him because of the fear of missing out. His current team will want to secure his services soon because of this competition too.
The most likely scenario is Seixas renews with his team and as part of this gets to ride the Tour de France this summer but this will require busting open the piggybank. Maybe this is wishful thinking but it might be good if he did renew soon as we could watch him race rather than think about his deal. Challenging UAE’s monopoly on the sport has its appeal too.
Each race he seems to be stronger than the last one… It’s pretty impressive.
Where will Pogacar be in 2028 ? He will be 30, and I can be wrong, but I don’t see him continue his carrier too long (but maybe Seixas will make him race longer, if he beats him soon ? It could give him extra motivation as a competitor). I just hope we will have at least 2 or 3 years with both at the top, it would be great competition.
But we never know the future : maybe the two strongest cyclists in 2028 will be Del Toro and Ayuso…
Pogacar will be 29 in the Tour de France in 2028. He turns 30 at the end of the 2028 season. I suspect he will still be near his peak in 2028, and the decline will start in 2029 or 2030.
We’ll have to wait and see, but I think he’s at his peak now, and 2025 will prove to have been his best season.
I suspect Pogacar won’t be at the Tour in 2028.
I can see him winning in 26 & 27 to put him on 6 wins and then him arguing that he’s done with the Tour and concentrating on bagging the races he has yet to win.
He’s already a bit jaded with the Tour.
I pledge to buy plenty of sports and camping gear if he stays with Decathlon
😂 easier than reserving a CMA CGM container for sure (as a side issue CMA partly joined the team as co-sponsor because they do shipping for Decathlon).
Decathlon seems to have struck solid gold with, in my opinion, a probable future TdF winner rather than the multiple French possibles. The team will have to not only prolong Seixas but recruit serious stage race support too.
Wiki shows him studying at the elite Lyon Business School too. Is that still the case and possible?
PCS has him listed for Itzulia where he’ll surely be favourite. Anything less than a clear win will cast some doubt..
He’s been studying on a course with remote learning, presumably he continues but he’s moved and is living in Nice which obviously makes attending some real classes harder. We’ll see for the Basque Country, it’s a tricky race with the sharp climbs and knowing the terrain helps.
Thanks for the post – I hope some older heads give him so good advice for his future plans.
Whatever the teams may want to do about Seixas I can say that I watched the last 78km of the race yesterday — watch, in the loosest of senses; I had it on — to see if he could take second from del Toro. And I was very gratified that he had done so. It was pretty amazing, actually, how he trounced him on the final hill.
I used to be of the mind that Pogacar wasn’t making things boring. I’ve changed my mind, so having at least a glimmer of hope on the start line was nice.
He seems like a pretty level-headed kid, from what little there is from him in English.
I think there are three clear caveats to the excitement I have for Seixas.
First, he seems remarkably professional for a rider who is only 19. For many riders at that age, there are huge gains merely from being more professional in their training, diet and race-strategy. But Seixas seems to have most of this already.
Second, grand tour riders have a remarkable capacity to maintain their level over three weeks when most riders get progressively fatigued over the three weeks and their prefermance gets worse (or at least they have seriously bad days). Seixas has not yet raced a Grand Tour, so we don’t know how he will fare in the third week.
Third, as Inner Ring suggested, he might “fill-out”. He is already quite tall for a GT-rider, and if he grows and fills out (which we might expect between the ages of 19 and 23), he may end up too heavy to be competitive on the long-steep climbs where Grand Tours are decided.
Nevertheless, I too am hyped by his talent, and I am looking forward to seeing him challenging for major honours in the next few years.
I saw an interview with his father at the Faune Ardeche. He is a tall and prety skinny 40 something.
He’s 50 and his celebrated his birthday with his son’s win in the Faun-Ardèche Classic. Not a cyclist, but Paul got into the sport in part from watching it on TV at his grandfather’s house… he lives close to the Domancy circuit use in the Tour and which will host the 2027 Worlds.
26km to go, if anyone is interested.
Seixas certainly shows a lot of potential, although there is a long way to go. For me, whatever team he ends up in is not as important as the fact that he is French. The French have waited a long, long time for a really outstanding champion. A few have appeared, only to fade fairly quickly. A French team or sponsor would simply be the icing on the cake.
Cycling would benefit from two things. Seixas not turning into another pogacar and Seixas not joining UAE.
@Thomas Altman. Absolutely agree.
I agree. The last thing cycling needs is another Pogačar turning every race into a boring procession.
I agree as well, but was just thinking that it’s not just Pog who does the long range attack. Remco has done them for years, MvdP also does them.
Would be great to see all 3, 4 with Sexias, race each other more.
Another alternative is if decathlon does not think they can keep him they can profit from a transfer now for next year.
Unless he just wants to stay on a french team and is willing to except less than the max paycheck decathalon need a large sponsor input to overcome the high earner payroll tax.
Perhaps a third sponsor.
Given his couple of race results it would still be a gamble to pay out enough for a tdf winner.
The same as Remco a few years back. Lots of presumed ability and despite lots of great results he probably has not met the very very lofty expectations.
A genuine question from an American: can’t he make a lot of money outside of cycling if he’s the Great French Hope? In the US the top athletes can make more money from endorsements than from their salaries. It seems like the best French rider on the best French team would have huge opportunities beyond the peloton.
Come for the trenchant cycling analysis, stay for the references to mid-century Italian literature.
This blog is the very best. The Pogačar of cycling blogs, if you will. Long may it continue!
Way more interesting than Pogi
Better for the sport I think if he stays with Decathlon. A 2/3 year contract would give him the option of cashing in on his prime.
I will be incredibly sad if he signs for UAE. The sport will be so boring if all the talent is on one team. I would probably stop watching. I get that the money is appealing, but money isn’t everything.
Will leave thoughts on if the best riders end up on the biggest teams or teams become big when they’ve got the best rider to the comments and discourse on another recent blog post. But I really hope he doesn’t go to UAE, just because I want to see the best riders have a chance to race for themselves. The same frustrations when seeing a fresh footballing talent get their big move and… sit on the bench. I don’t think that would befall Seixas, but it might mean other UAE riders and shunted down the pecking order.
My real concern is just how he will survive the hype. There will be so much attention it will likely weigh heavier than any extra kg he adds as his body matures. Perhaps in this light Remco may offer some advice.
> “Richard Plugge needs a replacement for Visma ”
Seems like there’s 1 or 2 words missing here. A replacement what? Do you mean a replacement back-up classics or GC rider, or you mean a replacement for Vingegaard? Are there some rumours there? 🙂
A replacement for Visma themselves, as a title sponsor. They are reducing their sponsorship commitment at the end of the year. Only when they are replaced can Plugge continue to operate as a ‘super team’.
Just that and it’s a big hole to fill in the budget. A clock is ticking because management need to know what the revenue is next year so the wage bill can adjusted, up or down. If there’s no sponsor now they’ll hesitate to sign or renew riders and existing riders will want assurance.
With INEOS now seeimgly £100 million wealthier over the next five years, and with a French co-sponsor. I would think all bets are off about Seixas’s future destination.
Or perhaps a certain bet is now very much on? 🙂
(“All bets are off” -> there is too much uncertainty, and bookmakers stop taking bets).
I’m surprised it’s taken this long for other riders who are potentially in Pogacar’s league to arrive on the scene. Perhaps it’s not that Pogacar is a freak of nature, more that he somehow arrived 8-10 years ahead of his time.