Soudal Quick-Step, Remco Evenepoel’s team, announced this Wednesday that four other cyclists withdrew from the Tour of Italy for being with Covid-19, three days after the young Belgian was forced to retire while leading the general.
“Following the positive test of Remco Evenepoel’s ‘pink jersey’ on Sunday, a new round of tests was carried out on the riders and staff who remained in Italy, and unfortunately Jan Hirt, Josef Cerny, Louis Vervaeke and Mattia Cattaneo did not they were able to continue, said the Belgian team, on its official website.
The abandonment of the long-distance world champion and winner of the 2022 Vuelta, on Sunday night, hours after he won the time trial of the ninth stage and recovered the pink jersey, convulsed the Giro and led the organization of the race to impose new measures to contain the growing number of Covid-19 cases in the peloton, i.e. the use of masks in contact with cyclists.
“After Remco’s positive on Sunday night, we had two other cyclists who were not feeling well on Monday morning, but tested negative for antigen. PCR tests were then performed on the remaining seven cyclists, and the results revealed that another four tested positive.” We will continue to monitor and implement our testing protocol on the three remaining runners and staff at the race,” explained Toon Cruyt, Soudal Quick-Step doctor.
Despite the return of the masks to the peloton, the Covid-19 continues to claim ‘victims’ in the 106th edition of the Tour of Italy, with AG2R Citroën and Corratec also announcing today the positives of Andrea Vendrame and Stefano Gandin, respectively, before the start of the 11th stage, which connects Camaiore with Tortona, with a total of 219 kilometres.
The specialized press also reports that the abandonment of the Russian Aleksandr Vlasov (BORA-hangrohe), who was sixth overall, during the 10th stage, was due to Covid-19.
The Giro is led by Britain’s Geraint Thomas (INEOS), who is two seconds ahead of Slovenian Primoz Roglic, second, and five seconds ahead of his compatriot and colleague Tao Geoghegan Hart (INEOS), third. The Portuguese João Almeida (UAE Emirates) is fourth, 22 seconds behind, and leads the youth classification.
Source: TSF
