Colombian spurt Fernando Gaviria at Giro.
Marco Alpozzi, ČTK / AP
–
Gaviria was quarantined for six weeks in March and April after infection during the race in the United Arab Emirates. Now he is facing more isolation. Out of a total of 492 recent samples taken on the Giro, two were positive, in the second case they were employees of the AG2R La Mondiale stable.
“Gaviria was immediately isolated, feeling well and has no symptoms. All other riders and team members were negative and will undergo further testing today,” the UAE team said in a statement. In this year’s Gira, the winner of the 2017 Gaviria points competition was the seventh best, and he only made it into the top ten once.
After a terrible accident, two cyclists withdrew from Gira
–
The race, from which two complete sets resigned last week due to the covid-19 disease, continues today, after a day off, with the 16th stage, starting in Udine. Portuguese leader Joao Almeida will enter the decisive third week in a pink jersey, 15 seconds ahead. The race should end on Sunday in Milan.
One week ago, Sunday and Monday’s testing among all Gira participants yielded eight positive results from five different teams, including stars Michael Matthews and Steven Kruijswijk. Both had to leave the race and the complete Mitchelton-Scott and Jumbo-Visma teams resigned. He had previously eliminated the covid of the British co-Bavarian Simon Yates.
An extraordinary round of inspections at the end of the week calmed the peloton, as all results were negative. Two more cases have arrived today, and a question mark hangs over Gira’s completion.
In parallel with this, the third of the cycling Grand Tours Vuelta will start today with Zdeněk Štybar and Jan Hirt in Irun, Spain, albeit in an abbreviated form without three stages. The first wave of tests did not reveal any cases of infection among cyclists, but two employees were positive – one each in the Bahrain-McLaren and Sunweb teams.
– .
