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news
dave brailsford ineos 2020Sir Dave Brailsford: Team Ineos could withdraw from Tour de France if health at risk
Sir Dave Brailsford says that Team Ineos would withdraw from the Tour de France, postponed until late August and early September, to protect the health of its staff and riders. His comments come as a leading public health expert has criticised the decision to hold the race on a rearranged date as a “recipe for disaster.”
Organisers ASO confirmed this week that the 107th edition of the race, originally due to start in Nice on 27 June, would now begin in the Cote d’Azur city on 29 August.
In March, Team Ineos was one of the first teams to pull out of races as the coronavirus pandemic escalated in Italy and France, with the UCI WorldTour outfit also citing the sudden death days beforehand of sports director Nicolas Portal as a reason for suspending competition.
Following the announcement of the rescheduled date for the Tour de France, Brailsford told the Guardian’s Jeremy Whittle: “We would reserve the right to withdraw the team should we deem it necessary.
“Whilst the race is on, we will plan to participate, but equally we will monitor the evolving nature of how things play out, as we did prior to Paris-Nice. This is a sensible, responsible and reasoned approach.”
Team Ineos and, under its previous sponsor, Team Sky, have dominated the Tour de France since Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first British winner in 2012.
Since then, Chris Froome has won the yellow jersey four times, and Geraint Thomas triumphed in 2018.
With Egan Bernal victorious last year, Team Ineos could potentially line up in Nice with three past or present Tour de France champions.
Brailsford acknowledged however that there are moral issues involved in how society tries to return to normal once the crisis diminishes, and that the decision to try and stage what is the world’s biggest annual sporting event is part of that.
He said: “There will be a lot of debate generated about the rights and wrongs of the transitions out of lockdown across all aspects of society including sporting events.
“Equally most people recognise that the learning from transitioning out of lockdown will only take place once it begins. We will monitor the situation very carefully and of course take note of national guidance and all advice.”
However, Professor Devi Sridhar, who chairs Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh and is also advising the Scottish Government on the crisis, insists that it would be wrong to hold this year’s Tour de France at all and that it should be cancelled rather than postponed.
“The wise thing to do is cancel for this year,” she told cyclingnews.com. “It’s a painful decision but they have no choice.”
“This is a long-term problem, a chronic problem,” Sridhar told cyclingnews.com. “This virus is here to stay and will come back. Even if France gets a handle on it by August, then of course the issue is people coming in from different countries.”
Professor Sridhar said that organisers ASO “have to weigh the risks against the benefits. Thousands of people from all over the world, gathered together, moving around, from town to town, this is where a virus could thrive – it could be a recipe for disaster.”
She added: “There’s definitely a risk that the Tour de France moving around and unwittingly spreading the virus could kick-start a new lockdown.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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14 comments
Posted before, but...
Well it would seem that most of the team suffer from horrible ashma and terrible allergies for which they take massive amounts of drugs, which I'm guessing would place most of them into high risk groups.
Better safe than sorry.
Yeah - and it wasn't very funny the first time
Not really meant to be funny, not ha ha anyway. It's meant to be a serious point.
Chris Froome, who according to a feed on the Live Blog on this very site, is delivering Ineos sanitiser to hospitals in France, which does have a bit of a Coronovirus infection rate. Hospitals being a bit prone to infections as well.
Now in the Salbutamol thing Team Sky said in a statement that during the last week of the Giro concerned, Froome suffered from ‘acute asthma symptoms’.
According to Cycling Weekly " Froome has a known history of suffering with asthma and uses salbutamol to manage his symptoms.".
He is already recovering from some serious injuries, why put this person in any situation of increased risk, knowing his problems with asthma, when according to CDC "People with moderate to severe asthma may be at higher risk of getting very sick from COVID-19. COVID-19 can affect your respiratory tract (nose, throat, lungs), cause an asthma attack, and possibly lead to pneumonia and acute respiratory disease."
It does make me wonder...
If Froome has exercise induced asthma only then he'd be classified as mild asthma at best so not in an at risk group.
He's unlikely to have an exacerbation when delivering hand sanitiser.
Well, unless he's delivering by bike and the hospital is on top of the Tourmalet.
Higher risk then, if you like.
I don't think infection is dependent on actually having an attack.
Why put this prized athlete at any more risk than you have to for a mere publicity stunt. There must surely be others who could deliver it, who haven't been suffering from asthma for many years.
Unless....
He has mild asthma.
He's not in an at risk group.
I'm not aware of any evidence that exercise induced asthma increases your risk.
Are you?
Or do you want to explain your insinuations further?
NHS UK list asthma in it's Conditions that may increase your risk.
All you have to do is have a little look Rich, it isn't too difficult.
He has plenty of ability to exercise within his domicile and has indeed shown videos of himself doing so, why leave for an unnecessary publicity stunt to visit high risk environments?
The evidence is actually showing no increased risk with mild asthma and I've certainly seen nothing to indicate any risk increase with exercise induced asthma.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/health/coronavirus-asthma-risk.html
I get the feeling you're actually avoiding the main question.
Are you going to explain your previous insinuations any further?
It's on the NHS site the Rich
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/advice-for-people-at-...
But hey, what do they know?
Why take the risk?
If you follow your own link you'll see that they're not advising people with mild asthma to do anything different than those without.
Only leave home for essential journeys and exercise.
So, as I said, no increased risk with mild asthma or exercise induced asthma.
But anyway, you're still avoiding backing up your insinuations.
Going to give us any more detail?
And are unessential publicity stunts on the NHS site's list of reasons to leave home?
We've established he's not at increased risk.
I'm not really interested in a debate about whether his journey is essential or not.
I think that may just be another distraction tactic to avoid scrutiny of your previous comments.
So, care to elaborate on all those insinuations?
"I'm not really interested in a debate about whether his journey is essential or not."
It's almost that you don't know what you are even saying.
You've used that line before.
It made you look stupid last time too.
You've made some big brave insinuations, back them up, give us some detail, why are you avoiding the question?
Stop trying to wriggle out of it.