David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ United) will not race again in 2026 after medical examinations confirmed what his team described as significant fatigue requiring an extended recovery period.
The French climber has not raced since abandoning the Polynormande on August 16. The day after that race, the team said he would undergo further tests to understand his difficulties and to inform his training support and race programme. Those tests were carried out at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), and the team published the outcome on October 8.
"These examinations confirmed a significant state of fatigue requiring an extended recovery period," the team said. "This situation is part of a pattern spanning several seasons, marked in particular by injuries that led to sometimes complex preparation and recovery phases, with a gradual accumulation of different factors affecting his ability to recover."
The team said Gaudu and the team had decided in recent weeks to end his season, and that he is now resting before looking ahead to 2027.
A difficult year
The announcement closes a lean campaign. Gaudu's best result of 2026 was fifth at the Boucles de l'Aulne, alongside stage placings of eighth at Paris-Nice and ninth at the UAE Tour. A year earlier he won stages at the Tour of Oman and the Vuelta a España, where he also wore the leader's red jersey.
He was not selected for the 2026 Tour de France. In June, he told DirectVelo he had not been able to prepare as he wanted, skipping a May training camp as the birth of his first child approached.
"I can't perform at the Tour, and I'd rather leave my place to a rider who will be more competitive and able to help the team more than I would have," he said.
The selection debate turned more personal when an unnamed teammate, quoted by Le Parisien, questioned Gaudu's commitment and said he had "fewer and fewer supporters" within the team.
Gaudu rejected that suggestion days later. "I'm still motivated; if I didn't want to, I wouldn't train, I wouldn't push myself, and I wouldn't be racing," he told RMC Sport. He said becoming a father had changed how he saw things, but that he still took pleasure from being on the bike.
The team's statement places the cause of his struggles in his physical condition and the injuries and disrupted recovery phases of recent seasons. It gave no date for his return, saying only that he will rest until he has recovered fully.
