Is the Tour de France peloton getting younger? Investigating the history of teenage riders at the Grand Tour as Paul Seixas makes his debut

French phenom Paul Seixas is this month set to become the youngest Tour de France rider in 89 years, and, should he excel in his first-ever Grand Tour and somehow beat the likes of Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, he would also become the youngest Tour winner in history.

Home expectations of the Decathlon CMA CGM rider likely don't extend that far, even if French media is reaching a frenzied state over the teenager, but still, much is expected of Seixas.

In heading down the start ramp of the stage 1 team time trial in Barcelona on Saturday, Seixas will become the youngest rider to start the Tour since Adrien Cento in 1937, aged 19 and 238 on Saturday.

He will join just six other teenagers – Cento, Henri Cornet, Jean-Baptiste Dortignacq, Adolphe Hélière, Fabio Battestini, Georg Umbenhauer, and Danny van Poppel – in starting the race. He will also become the 40th rider aged 20 or younger to start in the same timeframe.

The record of the youngest rider to win the Tour still lies with Cornet, who won the 1904 Tour a month shy of his 20th birthday, after the top four finishers were all disqualified following the race.

Pogačar has come closest to taking the Frenchman's record, though he was still two years older than Cornet when he won his first Tour in 2020 at the age of 21 years and 365 days old (2020 was a leap year).

Another Frenchman, François Faber (aged 22 years, 187 days), lies third on that list, while Egan Bernal's 2019 victory landed him in fourth at nine days older than Faber.

These youngest riders seem to have raced the Tour a century or more ago or very recently, then. But is it true that the Tour is harking back to the early days and the peloton is getting younger?

Certainly some of the major stars of the sport are younger than they have been in recent decades. They are still outliers, but there are more than there were in the 1990s, for example.

This year, Seixas is joined on the startlist by 22-year-old time trial starlet Josh Tarling, a 22-year-old GC contender in Isaac del Toro, and two more 23-year-old GC men in Cian Uijtdebroeks and Juan Ayuso.

The quartet are among 15 riders who will start the Tour aged 23 or younger, while last year that number was 18 and in 2024 it was 15. Twenty years ago, Philippe Gilbert and Riccardo Riccò were among five riders aged 23 or younger (2005 had eight, and 2007 had 12), while look back to the first three years of the 1990s and the numbers were 15, six, and 14, with Laurent Jalabert and Alex Zülle among the notable youngsters.

There may be some small trend in the race getting younger, then, but it doesn't seem to be statistically significant, if at all so. In 1980, for example, 21 riders at the Tour's Grand Départ in Frankfurt were aged 23 or younger.

Notably, however, between Miguel Indurain in 1985 and Fabio Felline in 2010, there were no riders on the Tour start list aged 20 or younger. Since then, Van Poppel, Lenny Martinez, and Johannes Kulset have all joined that list of youngsters.

If anything, the Tour peloton as a whole has been getting older as the decades pass. According to Procyclingstats, the average age of this year's peloton will be 29 years and 16 days in Barcelona, creeping up from 2025's average age of 28 years and 243 days, the youngest average since 1999.

In the intervening years, the average age has remained steady at 29 years old, with the 30 years and 56 days of 2012 being the oldest average age of a Tour peloton in recorded history.

As you can see in our table of peloton average ages at the race, the average remained stable between 26 and 27 from 1950 up until the start of the 1990s. Since then, it has risen alongside advances in sports science, training, and nutrition, and now sits closer to 30 years old.

This year's Tour peloton will see 18 riders over the age of 35 competing, including Michael Matthews, Ion Izagirre, Tim Wellens, and the oldest, the 38-year-old Damiano Caruso.

In the previous two Tours, 15 and eight riders over 35 took the start. Back in 1990, only Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle was 35+, while in 1991 and 1992 there were just four and two riders of that age racing, including Duclos-Lassalle and Sean Kelly on both occasions.

Unlike the leaderboard for the youngest Tour winner, that of the oldest is unlikely to be troubled anytime soon. It seems as though riders are currently both breaking through at a younger age and lasting longer, though the bigger contenders are the younger riders.

At present, 1922 Firmine Lambot is the oldest winner in Tour history at the age of 36 years and 131 days old, the Belgian standing as the only man aged 35+ to win the race. Unless Damiano Caruso can pull off a shocker, that record should be safe this summer.

Three more riders, including Cadel Evans in 2011, have won the race at the age of 34, and the pair are among 25 men who have won the race above the age of 30, including Fausto Coppi, Chris Froome, Miguel Indurain, and Carlos Sastre.

A similar number – 23 – have won the race aged 25 or under, with Pogačar (three times), Eddy Merckx (twice), and Greg LeMond all on that list. Interestingly, Bernard Hinault, Philippe Thys, Gino Bartali and Jacques Anquetil are the only men to feature on both lists, winning at under 25 and over 30, highlighting their lasting quality.

So, Seixas could become a record-breaker this summer, but is his participation the sign of a greater trend in the Tour de France peloton? It doesn't appear to be the case.

Teenagers at the Tour de France

1904, Henri Cornet

Making his debut at the race, Cornet finished the six-stage, 2,428km race (yes, the average stage length was over 400km), just under three hours down on reigning champion Maurice Garin.

However, a later investigation by the French Cycling Federation concluded with the disqualification of all top four finishers, elevating Cornet to glory.

The reasons for the disqualification were never made public, though numerous other riders were previously disqualified for taking lifts in cars or resting in them. Cornet wouldn't hit these heights again, though he did win Paris-Roubaix in 1906.

1910, Adolphe Hélière

Frankly, little is known about Hélière. The 19-year-old raced his one and only Tour de France in 1910, making it through six of the 15 stages before tragedy struck.

On a rest day in Nice, Hélière was bathing in the sea when he was reportedly stung by a jellyfish and died, though it's possible that he died of exhaustion while swimming.

1931, Fabio Battestini

Italian racer Battestini made his Tour debut at the 1931 race, aged 19 like the others on this list. He competed on the Maino-Clément team of Giro d'Italia champions Constante Girardengo and Learco Guerra.

It would be the only one of two Tours he'd finish during his career, reaching Paris in 30th with a stage win in Brest to his name.

Two years later, he was disqualified from the race after eight days. He found more success on home ground in Italy, winning three Giro stages during a nine-year career.

1937, Adrien Cento

Cento was 19 years and 118 days old when he took the start of the race in Paris in 1937.

That race was his only career Tour appearance, and he completed the first four stages before withdrawing, with his best placing being 78th from 91 finishers on stage 2.

2013, Danny van Poppel

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe lead-out man Danny van Poppel is still going strong 13 years after his Tour debut, even if he won't be racing in France this summer.

At the age of 19 years and 338 days old, he made his bow for Vacansoleil at the 2013 Tour. He'd deliver his best Tour stage result to date on the very first day of that race, sprinting to third in Bastia.

That was the first of seven Tour de France appearances to date for Van Poppel, though he's racked up 25 wins elsewhere, including a stage of the 2015 Vuelta a España.

2026, Paul Seixas

Well, we know all about Seixas by now. The Frenchman is in his second year as a pro and might already be among the top handful of stage racers in the peloton.

Those who watched him demolish the field at Itzulia Basque Country and La Flèche Wallonne will eagerly anticipate his exploits this July.

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