From glory to futility – What version of Paul Seixas will rise from the ashes of his torched Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes?

Paul Seixas' ride on the penultimate stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes drew shock, awe, and praise from all angles, but it was exalted to biblical terms by the French newspaper L'Équipe. The 19-year-old, body limp after hours of bloodied toil, having to be dragged to his feet by his father, was likened to "someone who's been crucified and brought down from the cross – Christ and child at the same time".

In some ways, it wasn't so hyperbolic. There was a martyred sort of glory in his defeat and his defiance. We don't like it when our sportspeople have it too easy; we want them to suffer for their success. Tadej Pogačar winning Flanders three times the same way: boring. Pogačar winning Milan-San Remo after years of trying and after crashing just before the Cipressa: scintillating.

We're far from the point where Seixas wins are routine but until now, his rise to the top of the sport had been serene. Meteoric, but serene. Suddenly in disarray this weekend, we saw a new side to him.

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What's more, professional cycling is a sport that has always fetishised pain and in that respect Seixas' blood-stained jersey and inability to stand up after the stage only seemed to aggrandize him in the eyes of the watching public.

But, then, less than 24 hours later, it was all over. Even on Sunday morning Seixas was swaggering towards the team bus issuing rallying calls like 'we don't give up', and 'nothing is impossible'. Thirty kilometres later, he was in the passenger seat of a team car.

In the same way that the adrenaline drained from Seixas' system and left him with the realisation that he was in no fit state to race a bike over four mountains, so in the cold light of his abandon did the whole affair go from so gloriously thrilling to so oddly futile.

The favourite, after all, had simply torched his own race. He'd run back into the burning building, but was still left surrounded by rubble and ash.

But was there something to be salvaged from the wreckage? Was it, on some level, all worth it?

Great sporting careers are built on formative experiences. And even though this Dauphiné was ultimately no repeat of the famous 1977 edition – when a young Bernard Hinault came back from the brink of collapse to win – we may yet look back on it as a coming-of-age for Paul Seixas.

This whole race was a chastening experience. It went up in flames on Saturday but it had already been wobbling off the rails since even before it began.

On the eve of the race, Seixas lost his best mountain domestique Matthew Riccitello to illness. On the opening stage, his team controlled all day only to take their foot off the gas on the final climb and allow a tactical scenario to emerge in which key rivals stole valuable seconds. In the team time trial, Stefan Bissegger was dropped early and Seixas, who had to be told mid-TT to relax by Daan Hoole, was left on the back foot ahead of the mountains.

'I'm going to give my all until the end'

On the first of those three mountain stages, Decathlon again found themselves in an awkward position, with an unruly breakaway that upended the entire complexion of the race, allowing several new names into the yellow jersey fight.

And then came the crash, and more importantly the chase. Ninety nine teams out of 100 wouldn't have bothered, said the team's director, Luke Rowe. Four minutes was the deficit, multiple were the wounds. It was a lost cause. But one by one, Seixas' teammates dropped back and little by little they pulled off the unlikeliest of comebacks.

That collective endeavour is one of the biggest factors when it comes to finding positives amid the rubble. Seixas already seemed mature beyond his years but a teenager is a teenager, and team leadership is something to be grown into. Listening to Seixas' post-race interview – perhaps the most remarkable thing about that whole day – the contribution of his colleagues was certainly not lost upon him.

"I struggled to hold the handlebars, but I did so anyway, and I thought, 'Never mind the pain, I'm going to give my all until the end for these five guys who sacrificed everything for me, when they could have left me behind, and I would have had no complaints because it's what I deserved."

Seixas, who hasn't had to serve any sort of apprenticeship before getting his own chances in the pro ranks, perhaps truly understood what it means to have a fellow human being bury themself for you. His teammates will always do their jobs but they, too, were surely inspired to new levels by their leader's fight, not least once he'd left them behind on the final climb.

It was the sort of day that builds bonds and team spirit in a way that cannot realistically be replicated even when races are being won from the front. Likewise, the team's struggles to control the peloton, and the sense of grievance they felt at the lack of investment from other teams, will only have brought them closer together.

It will also have taught them a lesson or two, and that's what this Dauphiné might boil down to. Better to make all these mistakes now, rather than at the Tour de France next month, or in any future race for that matter.

On that note, for Seixas personally, his admission of his 'idiotic' risk-taking on descents was striking both for the honesty of his words and the brashness of the attitude they described. The line between confidence and arrogance is a fine one, and it's perhaps a good thing for all involved that Seixas had his wings clipped in this way.

He will also have learned a lot about his own body and his own mind – even on that brief final-day cameo – and how he channels both of these things is central to how he grows as a rider from here.

In a way, Seixas' zealousness can be a force for bad and for good. It lands him in that predicament on Saturday. It gets him out of it. Just not the whole way out this time.

Marc Madiot had some interesting comments on French radio after Saturday's stage, the long-serving FDJ manager – usually so wildly passionate – one of the rare voices not getting carried away by the drama of it all.

"When I look at Isaac del Toro, I see control, and I see blocks being put in place for the Tour de France," Madiot said. "In parallel we have Paul, who is raring to go, full of enthusiasm, but I see an extremely high energy expenditure that he'll have to master much better at a race like the Tour de France."

Whip Seixas into line at your peril, though. He may need to be reined in to some degree, but you don't want to completely douse that fire in his belly, which is what has taken him to the top of the sport at 19 in the first place. Some birds are not meant to be caged.

How the people around Seixas – team, agent, family – manage him from here is pivotal, as are the conversations he has with himself in the mirror.

The version of Paul Seixas that rises from the ashes of this Dauphiné will be very interesting to behold – it may very well shape the future of this sport.

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