Six additional riders from the Tour of Italy, including four for Remco Evenepoel’s Soudal Quick-Step formation alone, have tested positive for Covid-19 and will not start the 11th stage of the Tour of Italy on Wednesday. Leader of the Giro, the young Belgian prodigy left the race after a positive test carried out by his team on Sunday evening, on the eve of the rest day.
Following this thunderclap, “a series of tests was carried out among the staff still present in Italy, and Jan Hirt, Josef Cerny, Louis Vervaeke and Matteo Cattaneo are unfortunately unable to continue”, indicated Soudal. Quick-Step in a press release. Quoted in the text, the team doctor Toon Cruyt specifies that two of them presented symptoms on Monday morning.
And if the antigen tests carried out were negative, PCR tests carried out on all seven runners in the training turned out to be positive. “We will continue to monitor and implement our test protocol on the three remaining riders and coaching staff”, it is further specified.
The reinforced health protocol
Two other positive cases were also reported on Wednesday by the AG2R-Citroën and Corratec teams, respectively the Italians Andrea Vendrame and Stefano Gandin, also not starting in the morning from Camaiore, on the Mediterranean coast. A total of 15 Covid-positive riders have given up since the start of the Giro on May 6.
With the abandonment of the health protocol in force in recent years, nothing in the regulations obliges the teams to stop their riders affected by the virus, but most prefer to use the precautionary principle arguing uncertainties as to the consequences on health. extreme efforts produced during a Covid infection.
After the shock of the abandonment of Remco Evenepoel, the organizers of the Giro announced a reinforcement of sanitary measures, with the obligation to wear a mask in all areas of contact with the runners.