Van Aert Infected, Seixas Smashed in Costly Tour de France Tester

154 riders started the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Only 91 of them finished. That’s a brutal DNF rate for a race designed to deliver peak form for the Tour de France.

Wout van Aert, Paul Seixas, and Oscar Onley headline the humongous list of aspiring Tour de France riders who ended the Dauphiné in the infirmary.

Horrific crashes, a wave of sickness, and a freak infection marked this crucial tune-up race.

It was a Dauphiné plague that could spread through to the Tour de France – which starts in only 19 days, by the way.

For riders like Van Aert, Onley, and Seixas, DNFs in the Rhônes-Alpes could tilt the narrative on their race next month.

Van Aert is suffering with an infected wound in his elbow after he crashed in training two weeks ago.

The angry mess is causing consternation among team medics and delaying – or maybe even canceling – his final Tour de France training camp.

Seixas smashed his hands and elbows so severely in a 70kph crash-and-slide that he can barely control his bike.

Not ideal for the 19-year-old before his super-high profile debut as one of the GC “Big 4” at the Tour.

And Onley?

The breakout rider of last year’s TDF went flying into a ravine, landed in a tree, and dislocated his shoulder and wounded his legs.

The resurgent Netcompany-Ineos team might have lost a very expensive half of its two-rider assault on the top-5 of the Tour de France.

Worse still for Ineos, time trial powerhouse Josh Tarling broke his collarbone in a nasty crash and needs to get fixed, fast. The big Welshman was set to be the engine of a team hoping to take the Tour’s first maillot jaune by winning the stage 1 TTT.

40 percent dropout rate in key Tour de France test

A virus swept through the peloton last week and accounted for many of the Dauphiné’s dropouts.

Matthew Riccitello barely made it past the day 1 rollout with the sickness. Dozens more followed the young American from the peloton through the bathroom and into the sick bay.

For them, recovering from the virus that burned up the peloton could torch vital training time.

The short three-week turnaround between the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the Tour should be for final kingmaker workouts rather than a raging fever and broiling guts.

The sickly should make it to Barcelona on July 4 just fine, but will they be ready?

Remco Evenepoel must be very pleased he chose to sit out this race and train.

Only two teams – Lidl-Trek and TotalEnergies – finished with all seven of their riders Sunday when Isaac del Toro took his flowers.

With a total of 63 DNFs, it was one of the most attritional stage races in memory.

A 40 percent dropout rate? Ouch.

Uncertainty for Van Aert: ‘The wound is not healing’

Will Van Aert be at the Tour de France to support Jonas Vingegaard?

Who knows.

The 31-year-old caused a ripple of concern within Visma-Lease a Bike when he quit the Dauphiné on Friday due to ongoing pain in his elbow.

What Wout had brushed off as a stupid training crash the week before the Dauphiné was spiraling out of control.

“The wound is not healing,” team director Maarten Wynants told Sporza on Friday. “We do not really understand why it has suddenly become worse than it was earlier this week.”

Het Laatste Nieuws reported on Sunday that Van Aert’s wound is continuing to swell.

Visma-Lease a Bike confirmed to Velo on Monday that Van Aert won’t take his seat on the plane to Tignes for Visma-Lease a Bike’s final training camp on Monday.

The team was not able to confirm his future schedule.

It’s a costly setback for the Paris-Roubaix champion after he refound his winning form with his stage 5 win last week.

Seixas knocked back but not knocked out

Decathlon CMA CGM updated Sunday night that Seixas needs to hit the couch after his heroic struggle through the final weekend of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

“A crash like the one sustained on Saturday, at around 70kph, is very costly in terms of energy expenditure, and he will need a few days of rest before resuming his preparation for the Tour de France,” said team medic Jacky Maillot.

Seixas said he “slid like a toboggan on my front” in his high-speed descending crash on Saturday.

His forearms were not happy when he started the stage Sunday.

“After a good night’s sleep, Paul had decided to test himself on the first climb of the stage,” Maillot said after Seixas abandoned. “But with the effort, pain appeared in various wounds on his hands and elbows, making handling the bike too difficult.

“The instruction was to take no risks at all.”

The severity of Seixas’ wounds is uncertain. That he got on his bike at all on Sunday suggests they’re not disastrous.

But like Van Aert’s infection, it’s a setback that couldn’t come at a worse time for the great French hope. Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard won’t be waiting around in July.