While last year, all riders, staff members and Tour followers had to test negative to take the start within a strict bubble, the 2022 Tour started from Denmark without any specific anti-COVID-19 measures.
“They should have been stricter at the start and test everyone,” a sports director on the Tour, who declined to be named, told Reuters on Sunday.
“We’re in a situation that’s trickier than in the past two years,” Groupama-FDJ manager Marc Madiot told reporters.
“In the last two editions, there was some uncertainty and everyone was being super cautious. Nowadays there’s no obligation, for the general population, to be cautious, which is normal.
“But for us there can be big consequences. It’s like gangrene. When it’s here, it spreads fast.”
France’s Mikael Cherel took a fatalistic approach.
“That’s the game. COVID is not so much a health problem for us, it’s more that we are out of the game, out of the race and we lose a big objective for the team and for ourselves, that’s the damaging part. In the end it’s not so bad,” the AG2R-Citroen rider said.
“I put it into perspective, we mustn’t get upset about it, there’s nothing we can do about it. The judge of peace will be tomorrow with the tests but when a rider doesn’t show any symptoms there is no reason for it to stop.”
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