In the span of a long Saturday, the French youth revolution faltered.
On the roads of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Paul Seixas’ dreams of taking the next step on the path to a Tour de France win instead took a step back with an unforced error that eventually spelled an end to the Decathlon-CMA CGM leader’s race.
Kit Nicholson
And on the home hardwood of the Frost Bank Center that evening in Texas, the San Antonio Spurs’ transcendent center Victor Wembanyama saw his dreams of an NBA title slip almost literally through his grasp in an elimination game as New York Knicks’ backup center Mitchell Robinson bullied him away from a crucial closing-seconds rebound that could have extended the series.
For Wemby, the freshly crowned NBA Defensive Player of the Year, the fatal moment was actually a series of them, an accretion of errors and small mistakes that, at this level, simply cannot be made if one hopes to win. For Seixas, it was a few seconds of aggression or inattention – or both – that he desperately wanted back after he ended up doing a gravel slip-n-slide on his hands and elbows on an early descent at a tactically insignificant moment in stage 7 of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
In both instances, the snap judgment could easily be that the stage is too big for them. The skill that brought them to this point was overcome by inexperience, their vulnerability unmasked by it. In their eagerness to prove their greatness, they momentarily overreached, and suffered the consequences of sports that do not brook hubris.
At the Tour Auvergne, Seixas dug deep to finish after his early crash on stage 7, and showed the toll of the effort as his father helped him from his bike.
That judgment would be correct, but would also miss something essential about their professional journeys to this point, and what lies before them. Both vowed to return from their setbacks, and assuredly both will. And the paths they take will be defined as much by the support and development they receive from their teams as their own abilities.
The two young French stars themselves could not be more different in some ways: Seixas a slightly built 1.86 meters / 6' tall and Wemby towering over him at 2.24 meters / 7'4". But there are similarities too, starting with each being a superlative talent.
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