We had almost forgotten about it. But it jumped out at us when Remco Evenepoel showed up at his press conference on Thursday wearing a red mask: Covid is still here.
“Why am I masked? Because I don’t want to relive a second Giro here (he and several of his teammates had to abandon due to a Coronavirus infection).
And when we see the number of runners affected in recent weeks and the resurgence of this infection in society, there is reason to be worried. Tadej Pogacar, David Gaudu, Sepp Kuss, Mads Pedersen… all have been infected in recent weeks.
” We will miss him “
If the big favorite of the Tour de France was knocked out for a day and the 2019 world champion recognized that Covid “was not a big problem” for him, this is not the case for everyone.
Tao Geoghegan Hart was the first to give up on the Tour de France after having major difficulties in the Collet d’Allevard stage where he simply came to a standstill.
Kuss, winner of the Tour of Spain and model teammate within Visma-Lease a bike, will not be there to help Jonas Vingegaard even though he was announced as leaving at the start of the week. “We will miss him,” admitted the two-time winner of the Grande Boucle.
No special protocol
But apart from Evenepoel’s Soudal Quick-Step, wearing a mask is not widespread, for the moment, in other teams. “We are going to reintroduce tests every three days within the team,” said Marc Madiot, manager of Groupama-FDJ.
Unlike in recent years, no special protocol has been put in place by the organizers at the start of the Tour de France. Even if it seems complicated, they could announce one in the coming days if cases were to increase.
Covid is still a candidate to overthrow the Grande Boucle. Not just in the third week but every day.
