As the Tour de France convoy turned into the Alps, the shadow of Covid infection hung over the peloton, after the UAE Emirates team of race leader Tadej Pogacar lost a key support rider, Vegard Stake Laengen.
“Vegard tested negative yesterday morning but he reported sore throat symptoms late Friday night,” the team doctor, Adriano Rotunno, said. “The Covid-19 antigen test was positive, and the diagnosis was confirmed on a PCR test this morning. As per protocol, for his, the team, and the peloton’s safety, he will be withdrawn from the race.”
A second rider, Geoffrey Bouchard of AG2R Citroën, who won the mountains classification at the 2019 Vuelta a España and in the 2021 Giro d’Italia, also tested positive and withdrew.
“During the stage [on Friday] I did not feel well,” Bouchard said. “It’s a huge disappointment because we were just getting to my favourite terrain, the mountains.”
Pogacar compared the departing Laengen to a train. “He was the big guy of the team, really strong and in good shape, pulling on the flat, the climbs, everywhere,” the defending champion said. “It’s going to be hard without him, but I think we can manage with seven riders to get to Paris.
“Every day we are on the road, on the climbs. There’s so many people screaming, which I like, but it increases the possibility that you get infected by viruses. I hope that this was it, and that we will stay safe until the end.”
With Covid already present in two teams, the peloton is now braced for more bad news with all teams being subjected to Covid testing during Monday’s rest day in Morzine. On Friday, the team chief of Geraint Thomas’s Ineos Grenadiers, Rod Ellingworth, had shown remarkable prescience when he suggested that Pogacar’s team were struggling. He said: “It looks to me that they’re not particularly running at full strength. I don’t know, but are they sick?”
On Saturday, Ellingworth bemoaned the inconsistency in Covid safety measures among the leading teams. “We’ve got fairly strict protocols,” he said, “but I think there’s a massive difference between the teams. Some teams are a lot more lax. Some teams aren’t wearing masks, some teams are.”
In June’s Tour of Switzerland, won by Thomas, less than half the starting field of 153 finished the race after Covid positives swept through the peloton. “In Switzerland there was definitely an issue among the peloton,” Ellingworth said. “That’s why so many dropped out. But not one of us is above this and it’s reliant on self-policing.”
Like seven other leading teams, Ellingworth and his riders are being shadowed by a Netflix film crew, which has brought its own problems. “The crew are with us all the time. They had to change our whole crew after one of them tested positive, during this race. So when you look at it, there’s loads of way for it to spread.”
Saturday’s stage, from Dole to Lausanne, was won by Jumbo-Wisma’s Wout van Aert, who took his second stage of the race, outsprinting Australian Michael Matthews of BikeExchange-Jayco in the heights of Lausanne, overlooking Lac Leman.
A two-man breakaway including Britain’s Fred Wright, was hoovered up by the speeding peloton as the race entered the streets of the Olympic capital. The 23-year-old Londoner had dropped his final companion, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl’s Mattia Cattaneo, but as the bunch entered the final 5km and began the steep climb to the finish, Bahrain Victorious rider Wright was finally caught, giving Van Aert his chance.
Earlier, a mass crash only 10km into the stage was the worst of the Tour so far. Although all of the major favourites came down, including the race leader, Pogacar, the day’s most hapless rider was Thibaut Pinot, who crashed on the descent of the Col de Pétra Félix, but was then smacked in the face by the arm of a Trek-Segafredo team helper handing out drinks to his riders, although he carried on to finish the stage.
