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The Tour de France organization confirmed that the race director, Christian Prudhomme, and four team staff members Ineos, Ag2r, Mitcheton-Scott and Cofidis They tested positive for the new coronavirus to which they were subjected.
The results do not prevent either team from starting the tenth stage this Tuesday between the islands of Oléron and that of Ré, on the French Atlantic coast.
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The protocol established that two confirmed positives had to be given in the same team to be excluded from the race.
The Tour indicated that a positive for coronavirus has been detected in the “staff” of the Ineos of Colombian Egan Bernal, defending champion, in addition to those of Mitchelton, Cofidos and AG2R, and also in a worker from the organization who was in contact with the teams.
All of them will have to abandon the race, the organization said in a statement. However, the medical services indicated that “no cyclist has been considered a case of contact that needs a quarantine”, so they can continue in competition.
On the other hand, Organization sources indicated that Prudhomme must be absent from the race for a week because it has also been tested positive.
The position, which he has held since 2007, will be temporarily held by former cyclist François Lemarchand, who works in the organization, until the next rest day scheduled for next Monday in Isère, in the east of the country.
In total, some 650 people were subjected to a PCR test in the last two days, especially on the rest day this Monday, as established in the protocol developed by the organizers in cooperation with the International Cycling Union (UCI).
The tests were carried out on the whole platoon and its assistants in a mobile unit, which began collecting samples before the start of the ninth stage in Pau and throughout the rest day in La Rochelle.
The results of the tests were subsequently transmitted to the official race doctor, Florence Pommery, who communicated them to the organizers and to the UCI, in charge of supervising the entire process.
The Tour and the UCI had foreseen the disqualification of any team in which there were two positive COVID-19 tests confirmed among its cyclists and the rest of its components.
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Members of the organization were also tested, including its director, who tested positive. The protocol establishes that a second round of testing will be carried out on the entire “bubble” of the Tour during the second rest day, under the same conditions as the first and with the threat of expulsion if there are two positive cases.
EFE
