Tour Team Lotto-Soudal Sends Staff Members Home Over Virus

NICE, France: Two days before the start of the pandemic-postponed Tour de France, the Lotto Soudal cycling team said Thursday it had to send home several staff members after non-negative coronavirus tests.

The Belgian team said a mechanic and a member of the rider support staff returned one positive and one suspicious result. Both were sent home along with their roommates, the team said, without disclosing their identities.

Safety remains priority number one, the team said in a statement.

Lotto-Soudal’s Australian sprinter Caleb Ewan is among the favorites to win Saturday’s first stage ending on the famed Promenade des Anglais in the the Riviera city.

After months of intensive training, Lotto Soudal is still very motivated to perform well in this Tour de France,” the team said. The team hopes the two involved people recover well and that this Tour de France can go till Paris with healthy people.”

Initially scheduled to start in July, the Tour was postponed because of the pandemic, which has killed more than 30,000 people in France. Organizers aim to shield the 22 teams inside what they call a race bubble opened only to riders and staff who have twice tested negative before the race, including this week at a mobile laboratory in Nice.

The Tours COVID-19 protocol says teams will be expelled if two of their riders or staff test positive for the virus or show strong symptoms of infection. Race organizers say that scenario will be reserved only for two or more cases within a seven-day span.

___

Associated Press writer John Leicester contributed to this story.

___

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor