The tense nature of the pandemic race was exposed on the opening day of the Vuelta a Burgos, the first primary male foreign race since March, while criticism was divided in the platoon about the resolution of Israel’s Start-Up Nation of two runners due to considerations of the coronavirus.
While Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Yves Lampaert was one of those who congratulated the team on what he saw as a transparent and decisive action, others felt that the team had not gone far enough.
According to Het Laatste Nieuws, the Movistar team felt that Israel Start-Up Nation has absolutely retired from the race and expressed its emotions to Israel’s Spanish sporting director, Oscar Guerrero.
Israel Start-Up Nation refused, insisting that they had erred in caution after it became known that Itamar Einhorn had recently made contact with teammate Omer Goldstein, who tested positive for COVID-19. On the eve of the race, they announced that Einhorn would not participate, but on the morning of Tuesday’s first level, Alex Dowsett also retired, with only five runners on the team.
Einhorn and Dowsett, along with several of those who had also contacted Einhorn, were tested on Monday, but the effects did not return before the start of the race. Later in the day, they all came back negative.
Movistar would have been “subtle” in his calls to Israel’s Start-Up Nation, as Guerrero asked to convince his runners to leave.
“Maybe they reacted that way because they’re afraid of Ben,” Van Asbroeck said, referring team leader Ben Hermans.
“I think our team treated this very well and fairly, thus avoiding incidents. I spoke to several runners during the race, adding one from Movistar, and no one asked about the crown.”
In fact, while Movistar was not satisfied, some praised Israel’s Start-Up Nation’s resolution to eliminate those they described as two “perfectly healthy” runners.
“It’s wonderful that they do it this way and don’t look to hide things,” Lampaert told Het Laatste Nieuws. “I think they did the right thing by sorting their runners. Every team has to react that way.”
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