{"id":29430,"date":"2026-06-02T14:21:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T14:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/29430\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T14:21:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T14:21:15","slug":"paul-seixas-prepares-for-tour-de-france-debut-at-rebranded-criterium-du-dauphine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/29430\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Seixas prepares for Tour de France debut at rebranded Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Seixas, who will be the youngest participant in the Tour de France in 89 years, is set to keep raising French fans\u2019 expectations at the newly rebranded WorldTour Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9, the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes, starting Sunday. In 2024, Canada\u2019s Derek Gee-West won a stage, wore the yellow leader\u2019s jersey and finished third on GC, but this early-June race is not on his program for 2026. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gee on the 2024 podium with Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d and Matteo Jorgenson.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Seixas in the winner\u2019s txapela at the Itzulia Basque Country.<\/p>\n

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. K\u00e9vin 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\u2019ll be rarin\u2019 to go. Expect Dani Martinez and Tobias Halland Johannessen to also feature in the reckoning.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Van Aert beats Poga\u010dar in the Roubaix velodrome.<\/p>\n

Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes contenders not going to the Tour are Vauquelin\u2019s teammate Oscar Onley and Jo\u00e3o Almeida, the latter of whom was supposed to provide Giro d\u2019Italia competition for Jonas Vingegaard, but illness forced him regroup with an eye on challenging Felix Gall and Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d at August\u2019s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. <\/p>\n

So far the only Canadian on the start list is Alpecin-Premier Tech\u2019s Hugo Houle<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Behold the queen stage. Image by La FlammeRouge<\/p>\n

Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes runs from June 7 to 14. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Seixas, who will be the youngest participant in the Tour de France in 89 years, is set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21360,4749,5,21361,2537,11819,21362,2538,2098],"class_list":["post-29430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-2026-tour-auvergne-rhone-alpes","tag-2026-uci-worldtour","tag-france","tag-hugo-houle","tag-isaac-del-toro","tag-joao-almeida","tag-juan-ayuso","tag-paul-seixas","tag-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}