Paul Seixas on the radio

Kaley Fretz (0:00)

And, you know, sometimes we go to Buffalo Grill.

Welcome back to Spin Cycle, everybody. I'm Kaley Fretz. Today on the show, Paul Seixas' radio tour, Remco Evenepoel's California tour, and Matt White's reunion tour. Let's get to it. Welcome back to the show, Dan Cash.

Dan Cash (0:25)

Hello.

Kaley Fretz (0:26)

You do not yet have the plague.

Dan Cash (0:27)

Congratulations. Yeah, it's kind of getting through my family over here, but I've survived so far, so hopefully I'll continue to at least survive through the podcast. I mean, that's all.

Kaley Fretz (0:36)

Fingers crossed. And Johnny Long looking sort of oddly dark in a room today.

Johnny Long (0:40)

Don't know why. Yes. Don't know why. Also not sick, even though half of our staff is this week.

Lurgy week at Escape Collective.

Kaley Fretz (0:49)

It's the October Lurgy week apparently here at Escape Collective. Guys, we got a lot to talk about. We have a fair amount to talk about.

We're going to talk about Paul Seixas finally talking.

Johnny Long (0:59)

Yeah. That's fun.

Dan Cash (1:00)

Talking about talking is what we do.

Kaley Fretz (1:02)

Went from basically saying almost nothing the entire summer, including at the tour where he would just very, very briefly respond to the few interview requests that were even granted, to going on a radio blitz this week on French radio Canal Plus. And there's three or four more of them that he ended up on. Just another one that dropped yesterday.

What has he said? What has he said that's been interesting? Dane, you were working on a story on a success update for us.

Johnny Long (1:36)

Compiling everything he said.

Kaley Fretz (1:38)

Yeah. So what are the good... First of all, what is he getting asked about by French radio?

Johnny Long (1:43)

A variety of topics. What did he say that's interesting?

Dan Cash (1:45)

Yeah. So I think the one thing that everyone is interested in is the contract situation, which to be clear, the funny thing about this very hot contract story is that Paul Seixas has a contract for 2027 He's such a hot prospect, or not even a prospect, he's such a big name already, that everyone wants to know where he's going to be in 2028

Also, it's October, so that's what I was going to talk about.

Kaley Fretz (2:10)

Yeah.

Dan Cash (2:11)

So the French radio programs are all asking him about that, obviously. So on, I guess it was Monday, he appeared on an RMC Sport show and discussed.

Kaley Fretz (2:22)

Which, I think it was, Johnny, did you point this out? That, yeah, you did. That RMC Sport is an arm of Chimichugum.

Johnny Long (2:30)

Yes, I hadn't. Owned by Chimichugum, their media arm. So he's doing the right thing first. He gave the first exclusive to the people who pay his wages.

Kaley Fretz (2:39)

Which also makes me, well, I already sort of understood why RMC Sport is following the bus around for the entirety of the Tour de France this year. But that makes even more sense now, because it's a synergy.

Johnny Long (2:54)

It's a great synergy.

Kaley Fretz (2:55)

Yeah.

Dan Cash (2:56)

Synergy. So, on set appearance, he said some very interesting things. So Johnny, first of all, Johnny wrote up a story, you know, with some of the big things that he said.

I think the big highlight that a lot of people were interested in was sort of his exasperation with the process, which I found to be amusing because he's like a 20 year old who is exasperated with everyone trying to throw money at him. And I think that's a pretty good problem to have. But he said that it was, you know, this is translated from French, but he said that it was increasingly stifling.

He can't postpone his decision to the last minute. So he's not sure he maybe will start the season without saying anything, but eventually he's got to decide. And he said, depending on how you want to translate it, he's fed up or it's, you know, he's doing his head in with this whole process of... Because, you know, Decathlon really wants to keep him, duh. But then UAE has all this money. They and everybody else with lots of money want to give it to him. And I guess talking about that is overwhelming.

Johnny Long (3:59)

Well, especially, I think it's the wrangling at the end of the discussions, right, is that UAE seem to have made their decision with Riyappin, Isaac del Toro.

The main other player really is Pinarello, Keith O65, potentially Vismilli Spike, but I think that's probably looking less likely, but Glassenberg's millions and billions look to be the main competition potentially. So the final wrangling is on what, like buyout clauses, on bonuses, it's on who the support and cast to get around him. Like Paul Seixas said, it's actually worked out well dragging the contract out because it's forced his team to go out and sign some luxury domestique. He's sitting there being like, yes, this is doing my heading. As French cross-border Raphael said, he's only like 20, so a year or two years of contract wrangling is like a tenth of his life. So it must seem like a long time.