Dauphine DNF: Great French Hope Paul Seixas Suffers Summer Setback

Paul Seixas’ hope for a big confidence boost prior to his first Tour de France faltered on Saturday when he crashed heavily, and completely disappeared Sunday when he pulled out of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

Seixas had been in a determined mood on Saturday evening, saying that he would continue if at all possible.

“I think I’m going to take the start again tomorrow,” he said then. “We’ll see tonight but in any case, I’m going to fight to the end for the team.”

However he got into trouble early on during Sunday’s eighth stage, being dropped on the opening climb of the Col du Pré. He lost contacted with the bunch with almost 20km covered and then climbed into his team car about 14km later.

Both his arms were heavily bandaged, with pain in those limbs and in his hands referenced on Saturday when he spoke about his injuries.

“I’m really banged up, and what saved me today might have been the gloves because the gloves are wrecked,” he explained after stage 7. “I always wear gloves because today proves that if you fall on your hands at 70 kilometers an hour, your hands take a beating. My hands are still pretty messed up.

“After that, I couldn’t put my hands on the handlebars. I really struggled because it immediately strained my back. When you can’t put force on the handlebars, it’s actually really complicated.”

That complication clearly continued on Sunday, with his hopes to advance from sixth overall, 1:54 off yellow disappearing well before the finish of the race.

“The aches and pains came back quickly,” said Decathon CMA CGM DS Julien Jurdie. “It wasn’t an easy start. He told us over the radio that he wasn’t feeling very well, that he was in pain. As a precaution, we told him to stop. It’s the safer option with July coming up.”

While he is just 19 years of age, Seixas is due to start his first Tour de France in three weeks’ time. It remains to be seen if this crash and resulting withdrawal will affect those plans.

However Jurdie doesn’t believes there will be a problem.

“He’ll take a few days’ rest and he’ll be back on form in no time.”