We are getting a sense, seven days into the Tour de France, that the most relaxed contender for the podium is the rider who should be anything but. The nineteen-year-old, the next great French hope, perhaps the only man in France not on his own hype train, Paul Seixas.
With the Pyrenees behind us, the real story isn't whether Seixas can climb with the favorites, as he's already shown he can. It's whether such a young rider, in his first Tour, can carry a nation's expectations, a bidding war, and a helicopter visit from the president without cracking.
There are Decathlon-CMA CGM jerseys everywhere. French television pulls him on stage, where his slightly awkward, lanky youthfulness is beamed out to an expectant country each evening. The President of France flew in on a helicopter, drove behind him in a car with the Tour's director, and then shook Seixas' hand for an extraordinary 46 seconds, so long that I had to cross-reference multiple videos to time it in full. Macron said “we have high hopes,” after a solid but not spectacular day for Seixas on the Tourmalet. “I think he can still achieve great things,” the President added, the bristle of microphones and the great walls of the Pyrenees reflecting back at everyone via his mirrored aviators.
No pressure, Paul.
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