'It's really extraordinary' – young French phenom's Strade Bianche second place could have been the ride of the race

There's pressure, and then there's the pressure of being a promising young French bike racing star. But Paul Seixas is showing no sign of crumbling under the weight of generations of Gallic fans, who have been waiting with varying degrees of patience for a Tour de France champion to follow in the footsteps of 1985 winner (and France's most recent male winner) Bernard Hinault.

At Strade Bianche on Saturday, Seixas's ride to second place behind Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) – no yawning at the back – was arguably the performance of the race. His arrival at the Piazza del Campo in Siena was greeted with more fanfare than that of the Slovenian, despite the latter's attempts to rouse the crowd with a theatrical bow on the finish line.

It wasn't that the crowd wasn't impressed with Pogačar, who demonstrated the kind of form that may well have delivered a first, crushing, psychological blow to Tour de France rivals like Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe). It was more that they had seen this all before and, in any case, the race had essentially ended around, ooh, 78km earlier.

In the case of Seixas, the 19-year-old Lyonnais, it was a performance that many fans only dared to dream he could accomplish, and that showed. Of course, a Seixas win would really have been out of this world. But for a rider so young, who only registered his first pro win in February, and with so much expected of him, to beat some of the best riders in the world in one of the biggest races, this really was an exceptional performance.

He came in alone, a minute behind Pogačar, having dropped Giro d'Italia star (and Pogi's team-mate) Isaac del Toro on the final climb into Siena – that alone is some achievement.

Seixas himself displays the kind of bullish confidence that helps make some top riders unstoppable.

"It's a superb second place," he said afterwards. "The whole team did a tremendous job to put me in the best positions, but the race was chaotic at times and I had to make an extra effort that cost me some energy. That's what I lacked to catch up with Pogačar when he attacked, despite my efforts. Then there was no one to work with me. So I tried to make the race tougher and gave it my all until the end to get that second place. I'm very happy, it's really extraordinary."

How things progress from here remains to be seen but he will certainly take heart from his Tuscan performance. There is much speculation about Seixas riding the Tour de France; it's yet to be confirmed but it does feel as though that will be one arena in which the Frenchman is likely to be happy to approach with a learning mindset. With maybe just a stage win along the way…