'A new career as a professional grimacer awaits' – Ronan Augé suffering facial paralysis after horror crash at Tour de Langkawi

Unibet-Rose Rockets rider Ronan Augé remains in hospital in Malyasia two and a half weeks on from his horror crash on stage 6 of the recent Tour de Langkawi, and has revealed he is suffering from facial paralysis.

The 22-year-old Frenchman spent a day in a medically-induced coma after the crash, in which he suffered multiple broken bones – including his tibia, elbow, cervical vertebrae, ribs, fingers and skull – as well as a collapsed lung.

In two new social media updates posted at the weekend, he suggested that his recovery is progressing well and that he will “soon be back in France”, but also outlined that he’s not out of the woods and has one unusual and nasty condition to go alongside all the healing bones.

“50% of my face is paralyzed from a crash on the bike. A new career as a professional grimacer awaits me,” he wrote under a video of him pulling faces to the tune of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On.

“The impact damaged my right facial nerve. With time and rehabilitation, it should hopefully recover. And if it doesn’t, surgery could be an option. So I’m staying optimistic,” he added in a response to a comment on the post.

The humour of Augé’s most recent post was a far cry from his first one, six days after his crash.

“Right now, my greatest victory is simply being alive,” he wrote at the time.

The 2026 season was Augé’s first riding at ProTeam level, the talented sprinter joining the French-registered Rockets team from the CIC-U-Nantes Continental squad and even bagging his first professional race victory, winning the bunch sprint at the end of a lumpy stage at La Route d’Occitanie in mid-June.

With two fourth-place finishes in the opening stages of the Tour de Langkawi, Augé had been in good form in Malaysia until the crash.

"It’s hard to find the words to describe what has happened over the past few days," he wrote on October 9.

"A few days ago, my life changed completely on the roads of the Tour de Langkawi. After a crash, several days in a coma, and waking up in a hospital in Kuala Lumpur, I’m slowly beginning to realize what I’ve been through.

"One thing is certain: I’m not giving up on my dreams. I promise I’ll give everything I have, fight every single day, and never stop believing.

"I want to say a massive thank you to Unibet Rose Rockets, who have been absolutely incredible in supporting me and my family since the very beginning. I feel incredibly lucky to have such amazing people around me."

From Pau on the edge of the Pyrenées, Augé began his elite career in 2023 riding for the Groupama-FDJ development team, moving to the CIC-U-Nantes squad in 2025 before joining Unibet-Rose-Rockets on a two-year deal at the start of 2026. That at least gives him time to recover from injuries and return to competition before his contract expires.

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