{"id":941969,"date":"2026-05-06T17:18:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941969\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T17:18:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:18:21","slug":"racing-the-tour-de-france-without-pressure-is-a-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941969\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cRacing the Tour de France without pressure is a lie\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nYet Delgado, winner of the 1988 Tour de France<\/a> and now an analyst for RTVE, believes the pressure surrounding the French teenager could become one of the biggest challenges he faces during the race. \u201cPaul Seixas, the emerging champion of French cycling, who is capable of going toe-to-toe with Pogacar, the true dominant force in cycling over recent years, is going to ride the Tour,\u201d Delgado explained.<\/a> \u201cOn one hand, it seems like great news, but I do have my reservations.\u201d\u201cRacing without pressure is a lie\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the biggest talking points surrounding Seixas\u2019 Tour debut has been the idea that the 19-year-old can simply use the race as a learning experience without expectation.<\/p>\n

Delgado does not believe that is realistic. \u201cRacing without pressure is a lie. He is going to race with enormous pressure,\u201d he warned. \u201cMaybe the team tells him, \u2018stay calm\u2019, but you\u2019re at the Tour, the dream race. Everybody is talking about you, everybody is cheering for you, you see yourself close to the best riders\u2026 you are going to get pulled into the race no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spaniard stressed that he has little doubt Seixas possesses the physical level required to survive the race. Instead, his concerns are more about the mental toll of three weeks under constant attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cNineteen years old, I think that\u2019s very young. Physically, I think he can do it. Mentally, he seems very focused to me, but this idea of racing without pressure, I don\u2019t know to what extent that\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe third week you feel like you are dying\u201d<\/p>\n

Delgado also pointed to the unique brutality of a Grand Tour as something impossible to fully understand until a rider experiences it firsthand. \u201cI think he will have a really good first week, and then we will have to see about the second and third week,\u201d he said. \u201cThe routine, the monotony of day-to-day racing. That is a real ticking time bomb for a rider. The first week is excitement, the second fatigue starts to appear, and by the third week you feel like you are dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

That fear, according to Delgado, is not just about physical exhaustion. \u201cThe fear I have for that type of rider is the consequences it could leave behind, that bitter memory of a three-week race that could make him lose confidence in himself, a confidence that is currently extremely high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of that, Delgado admitted he would have preferred Seixas to make his Grand Tour debut later in the season at the Vuelta a Espana rather than immediately stepping into the pressure of the Tour de France spotlight.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the ideal thing would have been to ride the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a,\u201d Delgado explained. \u201cYou learn what a three-week race is there, you race without pressure, you learn the routine and understand what it feels like to arrive in the final week with an empty tank.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/p>\n

Seixas will make a highly-anticipated Tour de France debut this summer<\/p>\n

French pressure adds another layer<\/p>\n

The former Tour winner also believes Seixas\u2019 nationality changes the equation completely. \u201cIt\u2019s true that riding the Tour for a French rider is the ultimate dream, but I think he should wait so he does not end up with a bitter memory,\u201d Delgado said. \u201cIf he were Spanish, Italian or German, he could probably race without that pressure. But being French, with the country\u2019s need for a champion, racing without pressure is simply not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seixas will start the Tour at 19 years and 283 days old, making him the youngest rider to appear in the race since 1932 according to Pro Cycling Stats. Only one other teenager, Danny van Poppel in 2013, has started the race in that period.<\/p>\n

That statistic alone underlines just how unusual the situation surrounding Seixas has already become before the Tour has even begun.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yet Delgado, winner of the 1988 Tour de France and now an analyst for RTVE, believes the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[4230,188743,2000,299,36,183918,178568,20680],"class_list":{"0":"post-941969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-decathlon-cma-cgm-team","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-paul-seixas","14":"tag-pedro-delgado","15":"tag-tour-de-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116528776693525367","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}