"At 19, he looks a lot more polished than Pogacar did" - Bruyneel and Martin on Paul Seixas' striking evolution

The UAE Tour, Volta ao Algarve and Vuelta a Andalucia have been providing quite a lot of spectacle this week; whilst in the previous two we're having many of the world's best climbers in competition and showing their current form. Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin have discussed the evolution of Paul Seixas and have compared him with Tadej Pogacar.

In the Algarve, The Move podcast discussed the summit finish to the Alto da Fóia on stage 2. Tadej Pogacar famously took his first pro win there in 2019 (whilst a young Remco Evenepoel also won there one year later). It is a climb now being heavily associated with new developing climbing talents and naturally, Paul Seixas' win there this week has only grown the comparisons even further with the world's best.

"Almeida's really pressing inside the last kilometer. I thought maybe too much, but maybe he thought that was his best chance. He couldn't drop Ayuso," Martin said. "And then Paul Seixas, it was a tricky little final few hundred metres. He gets to the front and he's sprinting up very fast, and the thing I was most impressed with is I thought he kind of worked over the older rider (Juan Ayuso, ed.), tactically, he's four years older than him. And he was taking the better lines, pushing them into the barriers and holds off for a photo finish".

Seixas had given immense evidence of his talent in 2025, also finishing on the podium of the mountainous European Championships with Pogacar and Evenepoel; and ahead of Ayuso; and he has now taken his first pro win. "First pro win of his career. I've been a little cool on Seixas the last few weeks, maybe on the show, but I thought this was a super impressive win."

"Finally his first win, you know, let's not forget last year at the beginning of the season, he gave away that stage in Tour of the Alps to [Nicolas] Prodhomme and didn't win a race anymore," Johan Bruyneel argued. "Except the Tour de L'Avenir where he won a few stages and the GC. But in the pros, this is his first win, but definitely not the last one". The Decathlon CMA GCM leader is racing with the best in the world this year on many races, and is already a proven winner even at a high level.

"He's in great shape. Looks like he has made a step forward again because this is the real deal. I mean, if you're with Ayuso and Almeida and Onley, these are the big names, you know? The next level is Pogacar and Jonas [Vingegaard] and [Isaac] Del Toro you know, that's it. There's nothing else close to this."

Seixas is the next French hope but many outside of the nation also consider him to be a future Tour de France winner and, perhaps, the next rider being able to battle with Tadej Pogacar: "And I'm not saying he's gonna be better than Tadej Pogacar. I just wanna, I want that out there. I will say at 19, he looks a lot more polished than Pogacar did," Martin argued. "If you go back and watch those early Pogacar wins and successes, you kind of didn't know what he was doing. it looked like 'ah I don't know, just ride away and win. Whoa, I won? Crazy'. Like this looked really studied and tactically astute".

The Fóia finale, despite being tough, was very tactical and also technical in the finish, with the Frenchman beating Juan Ayuso. The two go into the final day of the race, after an equally impressive time trial from the Frenchman, only 7 seconds apart.

"I was pretty impressed," Bruyneel admitted. "I think Paul Seixas is already fine-tuned. You know, he knows how to train, has his nutrition down, and you know, knows how to race. He's a big pro, you know, there's not much he has to learn except, you know, maybe learning his own body, but, and he's gonna discover that over the years. But, but yeah, he's definitely on top of his game already."