France entrusts itself to a 19-year-old kid in this Tour

Foix (France)Carcassonne welcomes the crowd that has come to see the start of the fourth stage of the Tour with that blast of heat you feel when you open the oven to take out cannelloni. Enduring the heatwave is worth it because the French spectator this year has eyes only for Paul Seixas (on French radio they pronounce it secsàs), the cyclist who at nineteen years old has stood up to Pogacar before the French race and who has the pressure of an entire country to win a Tour that has eluded them since 1985, when Bernard Hinault achieved the last victory. "He is very young, but he is a strong cyclist. He has many options to fight for the Tour de France, but I don't know if this is his Tour. Maybe next year," says one of the thousands of French spectators who have come to the Occitan city to ARA, under the shade. "We hope he can win one or two stages," he adds. His brother says he hopes he doesn't suffer the same fate as Thibaut Pinot, who with three Tour stages under his belt suffered pressure that tore him apart: "Let's hope Seixas takes it easier and can be like Anquetil in the past and be the great French cyclist of this new era".

Froome advises him to keep his feet on the ground

Chris Froome, four-time winner of the French tour, tells L'ARA that he expects "nothing" from Seixas, who races with Decathlon CMA CGM Team. "He is nineteen years old and what he has to do is enjoy the Tour, soak up the experience as much as possible and think about returning in two or three years to try to win it," argues the Briton. However, Seixas, the strongest hope for French cycling in decades, has reasons to excite the local public. He comes from winning the Itzulia Basque Country and also La Flèche Wallonne, two prestigious races. He also finished second behind Pogacar, holding on for a while in the direct duel at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Strade Bianche. On the other hand, he crashed in the Tour Auvergne - Rhone Alps and still has visible remnants of the accident he suffered on his hands, arms, and legs. There are newspapers that during the Tour publish daily opinion columns about how each stage has gone for this cyclist with a boyish face, who is a native of Lyon.

Seixas is the youngest cyclist to debut in the Tour since 1937, at 19 years and 283 days old. That's why his team protects him from the media. "Not today, not tomorrow": this is the laconic response of the members of his staff when journalists ask for your statements. The Catalan Xavi Florencio, sports director at the Tour for the Bahrain Victorious team, says that Seixas "risked on the descent at the Itzulia and it paid off, and at the old Dauphiné, without needing to risk, he fell on a descent". Florencio believes that these types of errors cannot occur at the Tour and that from his team they must "manage" him so that he is not "so aggressive on descents". On the other hand, he believes that he must be careful "with the pressure of the French media and understand that a Tour is not like other competitions".

Victory for Pedersen and Pogacar gives up the yellow jersey

The first stage, disputed entirely on French territory in this Tour, ended with a victory for the Dane Mads Pedersen in Foix. The Lidl-Trek rider crossed the finish line first, where temperatures close to 38 degrees were recorded, after a large breakaway that also included the new yellow jersey of the race, the Norwegian Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility). The fifth stage will take place between Lannemezan and Pau, with a flat profile and a finish suitable for a sprint.