“They need to up their ability” - Chris Horner warns Decathlon must raise level around Paul Seixas as Tour de France debut nears

Chris Horner has warned Decathlon CMA CGM Team that they must raise their level around Paul Seixas before the 19-year-old’s Tour de France debut, after questioning the team’s tactical management at the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes.

Seixas has been confirmed in Decathlon’s eight-man Tour line-up alongside Olav Kooij, Tiesj Benoot, Matthew Riccitello, Cees Bol, Aurelien Paret-Peintre, Daan Hoole and Nicolas Prodhomme.

The French teenager will arrive in Barcelona as one of the most talked-about debutants in years, with Decathlon balancing his GC ambitions against Kooij’s sprint opportunities.

Horner praised Seixas’ performance in the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, but the former Vuelta a Espana winner was far less convinced by the race management around him.

“I still have not seen answers why stage six, Paul Seixas’ team allowed 60 riders to go up the road,” Horner said on his Beyond the Coverage YouTube channel. “If the management there on stage six of Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes thought that it was EF Education’s job to control on stage six, then they’re big-time knuckleheads and they’re going to have to solve that problem quickly.”

Seixas crashed later in the race and abandoned before the finish, leaving his final Tour preparation under extra scrutiny. Horner said that crash may have cost him rhythm in the final weeks before July, but his sharper criticism was aimed at Decathlon’s handling of the stage before that setback.

“Assuming Paul Seixas can get himself back up to top form, if the French kid does, the staff certainly need to up their ability,” Horner continued. “Because stage six was an unreal knucklehead manoeuvre made.”

Horner’s complaint centred on the size and freedom of the group allowed to move up the road before the final climb. Even if Decathlon could not bring the move fully back, he argued they should have been controlling the gap much earlier.

“They should have just been riding tempo throughout stage six the whole time,” he argued. “Whatever happened, when 60 guys go up the road, Decathlon needed to be on that immediately and bring that back. And if they don’t bring it back, they need to be on it at such a good pace that they can control the peloton and hold those guys to a two-minute gap when they start the final climb.”

Horner did not aim his criticism at Seixas’ legs. Once the race reached the decisive terrain, he felt the French teenager showed why so much expectation now surrounds him. “Paul Seixas did an amazing job on stage six,” Horner said.

That expectation will only grow at the Tour. Seixas is not being treated as a routine debutant, with his age, nationality and stage-racing progress already making him one of the central stories around Decathlon’s July line-up.

The team named for Barcelona gives him experience, but not a pure mountain-only structure. Benoot, Paret-Peintre and Prodhomme bring road captaincy and climbing support, Riccitello offers another option in the mountains, while Kooij gives Decathlon a separate sprint target. That makes the race management around Seixas even more important once the Tour begins to split between sprint stages, transition days and the high mountains.

Horner used Isaac del Toro’s ride at the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes as the contrast. The UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider went on to win the race, and Horner described his performance as tactically flawless.

“The Mexican kid tactically was perfect,” Horner said of Del Toro. “Every interview when he talked about wanting to race smart, wanting to race intelligently, wanting to save energy and attack at the right moments in the right place in time. The Mexican rider was exceptional.”

On stage six, Horner argued, Del Toro let Seixas carry the greater workload before contributing only when he was sure he was not at risk of being dropped. “He made the French kid, the 19-year-old kid superstar for Decathlon, ride the whole time,” Horner said. “Isaac del Toro still stayed on the French rider’s wheel knowing that he has to do the bulk of the work, didn’t start rotating with him until he knew for sure that he was in no danger of getting dropped by Paul Seixas.”

Seixas will face that kind of race craft again in July, only with stronger teams, deeper fields and far more at stake. Decathlon have named a squad with experience and sprint power around him, but Horner’s warning is that the decisions around their teenage leader will need to be sharper than they were at the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes.