France’s Paul Seixas cut a dejected figure as he passed through the media zone after the UCI World Championships road race on Sunday. He dropped his gaze to the ground, and responding to the press, brandished his performance “a disgrace”, after he cramped in the finale and fell out of contention.
The 20-year-old jostled alongside the favourites until the final 13.8km lap of the 273.4km race. As his rivals attacked each other in a last-ditch attempt to close the tearaway winner, the USA’s Brandon McNulty, Seixas posted up in the saddle, holding his left thigh.
He went on to finish 15th overall, having said before the race that “anything other than gold would be a disappointment”.
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“I don’t really want to talk about it,” he told Eurosport afterwards. “What I did today is a disgrace. Cramping up like that, it’s a childish mistake. I’ve never cramped up in my life on a bike.
“I’m extremely disappointed, not only for myself because it’s what I deserve, but for the whole of France, the whole team, who did an incredible job and don’t deserve a leader like me.”
Second-year pro Seixas has held the spotlight this season as French cycling’s next big hope. He won the WorldTour stage race Itzulia Basque Country in April, followed by the one-day Classic La Flèche Wallonne, and went on to finish fourth on his Tour de France debut as the race’s youngest starter in 89 years.
He turned 20 last week, three days before the World Championships road race.
Berating himself afterwards, he wondered if his downfall had been due to dehydration. “Maybe I under-estimated how much I was sweating on the bike,” he said.
“It’s hard to be comforted right now. You can’t move on to something else so easily. It’ll take me a bit of time to process this, I think.”
Seixas stretches out his cramp beyond the finish line.
(Image credit: Zac Williams/SWpix)
France’s national coach, Thomas Voeckler, was more forgiving in his analysis of the race.
“Paul Seixas was part of the race with winners like that,” he also told Eurosport, pointing to Paris-Roubaix winner Wout van Aert (Belgium).
“[Seixas] said before the race that any result other than a victory would be a failure, so he sees it as a failure. He needs time to process it. It’s frustrating, but that’s sport… That’s what makes cycling. It’s no big deal. I’m upset for him more than for myself.”
France worked hard to control the race in the early stages, relying on Bruno Armirail in particular to reel in the day’s breakaway.
Looking back on how the race panned out, Voeckler said he wouldn’t have changed the team’s tactics. “When someone wins, that doesn’t mean they did everything right. And when someone doesn’t win, that doesn’t mean you have to throw everything away,” he said.
“There are disappointed countries – France is part of it, as is Belgium – but we have to be reasonable; we’re talking about a boy, and we’re disappointed because we knew he had the potential to do it, but the guy’s just turned 20.”
Seixas’s chance at rainbow redemption will come on home soil next year, when the ‘Super Worlds’ are scheduled to take place in France’s Haute-Savoie region, a two-hour drive from his home in Lyon.
Despite his disappointment over his road race result, Seixas still left Canada with a bronze medal, earned in the individual time trial.
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