Pogacar had Covid but says he is ready to fight –

Tadej Pogacar, the big favorite of the Tour de France, revealed Thursday that he contracted Covid ten days ago, while ensuring that he was “fully recovered” forty-eight hours before departure in Florence where the virus is again in everyone’s heads.

“I fell ill ten days ago. I had Covid, it was a little question mark but I recovered well and I am fully recovered,” declared the Slovenian at the Palazzio Vecchio, jewel of the Renaissance where the main leaders met the press.

“It wasn’t that bad. It was just a cold that passed pretty quickly,” he said. “Covid is not as virulent as it used to be, especially if you’ve had the virus before.”

The 2020 and 2021 winner fell ill during a training camp at Isola 2000. He stopped for a full day before returning to cycling, first on the rollers indoors, then outdoors “.

Another setback disrupted his otherwise “perfect” preparation: the death of his grandfather. Pogacar went to the funeral in Slovenia – ‘it was important for me’.

Second for the last two years behind the Dane Jonas Vingegaard, the 25-year-old Slovenian aspires to become the first rider since Marco Pantani in 1998 to complete the Giro-Tour double in the same year.

Everyone designated him as the big favorite, starting with Remco Evenepoel who deemed him “unbeatable” if he remains “safe and sound”.

Because “Pogi” destroyed the competition in May at the Tour of Italy, while his main rivals, Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic were licking their wounds after a heavy collective fall at the Tour of the Basque Country.

Being on the Tour de France is “a victory in itself” and “the rest will just be a bonus”, underlined Thursday Vingegaard who had suffered fractures to the collarbone, ribs and a pneumothorax in this “really terrible” crash. “.

Asked about the possibility of winning the Tour a third year in a row, he replied: “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve worked a lot and I’m not in bad shape. I want to believe in it but we have to wait until see.”

Hard blow, the Dane will not be able to count on his first lieutenant in the mountains, Sepp Kuss, withdrawn because he has not sufficiently recovered from Covid.

Several runners have been ill in recent weeks, including the Frenchman David Gaudu, who has recovered, and the British rider Tao Geoghegan Hart, who has withdrawn.

Unlike Pogacar, Vingegaard or Roglic, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel therefore presented himself with a mask on his face in front of the press.

“I don’t want to relive the same thing that I experienced last year in the Giro, I just want to be careful,” said the Flemish who, in 2023, had to abandon the Tour of Italy because of the virus , while he was its leader.

Evenepoel, who was also involved in the fall in the Basque Country with fractures to his collarbone and shoulder blade, will aim for “a stage victory” while wanting to “finish as high as possible in the general classification”, but without put “no pressure”.

“We know that Covid is making a comeback. We are careful to get back into the habit of barrier measures, even if reflexes have been lost a little. We are facing the major event of the season,” commented the manager of the Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale team, Vincent Lavenu.

At the start of the week, the director of the Tour, Christian Prudhomme, told AFP that masks would be “made available” if necessary, but that there would be no health protocol, as was the case. case at the height of the health crisis.

Far from his concerns, the atmosphere went up a notch on Thursday in Florence for the presentation of the teams in the early evening on Piazzale Michelangelo, which overlooks the city, an open-air museum, and the Arno river.

This 111th edition marks the first departure from Italy in the history of the Tour de France, a hundred years after Ottavio Bottecchia’s first Italian victory in 1924.

It will end, after three weeks of fighting and suffering, on July 21 in Nice, and not in Paris as usual, because of the Olympic Games.

By Jacques KLOPP / Florence (Italy) (AFP) / © 2024 AFP