UPDATE: Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) and Rigoberto Urán (EF Education-EasyPost) left the Giro d’Italia after testing after level nine on May 14.
Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), favourite for victory in Sunday’s time trial, is absent from the Giro d’Italia with COVID-19.
The Italian is the latest rider to leave the big Italian excursion with a coronavirus diagnosis, the team showed on Saturday morning.
“Unfortunately, Filippo Ganna will not line up to compete at today’s level 8 of the 2023 Giro, after testing positive for COVID-19 and showing mild flu-like symptoms,” a team note read. “Filippo will rest now and completely before resuming his remaining racing calendar for 2023. “
Ganna, one of Italy’s most sensitive stars, is the fourth case of COVID shown to date at this Giro (see below). Some others tested positive before the start of the Giro and were replaced by healthy riders.
Teams are on alert and more and more cyclists are wearing masks. Team doctors are keeping a close eye on their respective crews, and the groups are recovering some of the mitigation measures, as there appears to be a backlog of cases within the platoon.
There are no longer mandatory checks for the race, but the team carries out its own internal fitness checks. Riders who test positive are not required to abandon the race and team doctors make the decision based on team protocols and after consultation with staff members and the rider.
Teammate Geraint Thomas, speaking to reporters at the start of the stage, said he would miss Ganna’s great engine in the current part of the Giro.
“It’s disappointing. Ganna is a vital link in the team, he already brought me back to the peloton twice this Giro after I was unlucky,” Thomas told Sporza. It comes to hygiene. I’m not going to a nightclub anyway, right now.
Thomas showed that he went out in the Gran Sasso gondola after Friday’s level and got into the cockpit with his teammates.
“We were all into it,” he said. We had masks, but we couldn’t do anything else. “
Posted on Friday, May 12: Two more riders leave the Giro d’Italia with COVID-19, sending a sense of dread to the peloton as the peloton pedals on its decisive first mountainous level of the Giro d’Italia.
Alpecin-Deceuninck rider Nicola Conci and Giovanni Aleotti (Bora-Hansgrohe) will start the seventh tier on Friday after being diagnosed with COVID-19, team officials confirmed.
“[Aleotti] will not start today’s Giro level because he tested positive for COVID,” Bora-Hansgrohe officials said. “He showed some symptoms after the level and promptly cut himself off from the rest of the team. We wish him a speedy recovery. “
They are the moment and the third rider to leave the 2023 Giro with coronavirus since the start of the grand tour on May 7.
French rider Clement Russo also dropped out of the Giro on Thursday, highlighting Arkéa-Samsic’s Giro debut after the team bounced back in the WorldTour in 2023, and prompting wider considerations within the peloton.
– Alpecin-Deceuninck cycling team (@AlpecinDCK) May 12, 2023
Even before the start of the Giro, several cyclists were eliminated due to a delayed surge in COVID-19 infections.
Several of the more sensible names missed the scheduled starts of the Giro due to infections, such as Robert Gesink, Tobias Foss and Jos van Emden of the pre-race favourites, Jumbo-Visma.
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The team was forced to upgrade five of its 8 scheduled starters ahead of the Giro due to illness and injury.
“It’s not an ideal way to start the Giro,” team captain Primož Roglič said at the start of the Giro. Measures we took before. Not having bad health is the most vital.
Trek-Segafredo lost their GC boy, Giulio Ciccone, due to COVID-19, with Henri Vandenabeele (Team DSM) and Gino Mäder (Bahrain-Victorious) also revealing infections.
The teams are reinforcing controls and security measures in the lines.
So far, the Giro is operating the revival of fitness or protective measures that were introduced in the wake of the 2020 outbreak, when masks, fitness screenings and social distancing were imposed on the men’s WorldTour.