Tour de France race organisers have confirmed that wearing masks will be a mandatory requirment in the mixed zones before and after the stages finish, including any members of the press, guests as well as the organisers themselves having to wear a mask after fears of Covid spreading through the peloton grew after British rider Tom Pidcock became the third cyclist to withdraw from the Grand Tour due to Covid.
Pidcock, who narrowly missed out on a second Tour stage win when he finished just behind Total Energies’ Anthony Turgis in stage nine, did not start yesterday’s stage 14, making him the third rider after yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar’s teammate Juan Ayuso from UAE Team Emirates and Sir Mark Cavendish’s lead out man Michael Mørkøv from Astana-Qazaqstan.
Pidcock’s teammate and 2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas also tested positive ahead of yesterday’s stage, but has chosen to continue racing despite saying that he doesn’t “feel great”.
“For a start, it’s obviously a big, big shame to lose Tom,” said Thomas. “He felt bad this morning so it was between him and the doctor and that’s what they decided to do. For me, I’m also not great. I’ve tested positive but I’ve got mild symptoms so the doctor is monitoring me closely.”
Following Pidcock’s and Thomas’ positive test, the British duo’s teammate Carlos Rodríguez, who finished fourth in yesterday’s Pyrenees stage, described COVID-19 as “an invisible rival”.
Meanwhile, Soudal Quick-Step’s Remco Evenepoel, who’s making his Tour de France debut and currently sits third in the general classification has been wearing a mask in the mixed zone since the last couple of days, and the Belgian has already called on ASO, the Tour organisers to implement more stringent measures against COVID-19.
“There are so many people at the start and finish. COVID doesn’t just enter the peloton, it comes from outside,” Evenepoel said on Friday.
“We want to keep it out of the race and be as safe as possible. We really don’t want to take any risks. I think we should go back to the rules from 2021, 2022. That is a small invitation to the organisation.”
Evenepoel knows a thing or two about having to abandon races after getting sick with the Covid virus, as the 24-year-old had to leave the Giro d’Italia last year, having to give up the maglia rosa in the process.
The mid-race implementation of a mask requirement is a repeat of the 2023 Tour de France, where the race also started without masks but later required their use after cases began to pop up in the peloton.
Mark Cavendish, who managed to sprint to his 35th stage win this year, making himself the all-time record holder for Tour de France stage wins, one ahead of the legendary Eddy Merckx, had previously said that teams are taking risks with health by allowing infected riders to continue racing and potentially exposing others to the virus, thereby ruining their races.
Mark Cavendish wearing a mask after winning Stage 10 of 2021 Tour de France (via Eurosport/GCN)
Other riders who have withdrawn from the race with illness have included Lidl-Trek’s Tim Declerq, while Bahrain-Victorious’ Fred Wright was unable to make the cut-off on stage 11 due to sickness.
Meanwhile, two-time Tour champion and the current maillot jaune Tadej Pogačar had also revealed that he had tested positive for Covid just ten days before the Tour de France started.
The Slovenian, who won the race with a splendid attack on the final climb of Pla d’Adet yesterday (and was shoved a bag of crisps in his face by a drunk spectator in doing so), said before the Grand Départ: “My grandfather passed away and I went to Slovenia to make a closure and see the family. It was a bit of travelling but it was really important for me. Then I went back to the training camp [in the French Alps] but got sick and had Covid. That was a bit of a question mark… but I recovered really good from that.
“It wasn’t too bad, just like a cold. It passed really fast. Especially if your body already had the virus before and I had it once or twice. I stopped for one day and then did some rollers inside. Then when I wasn’t sick anymore, I was riding outside.”
18 thoughts on “Tour de France reintroduces mask mandate as Carlos Rodriguez describes Covid as “invisible rival” after teammates Tom Pidcock and Geraint Thomas test positive”
Well that’s a bit astonishing
Well that’s a bit astonishing in its nonsensicality, people with whom the riders might associate for a few moments before the start must wear masks to stop the riders being infected before they set off to ride 200km shoulder-to-shoulder with people who are infected?
Rendel Harris wrote:
Genuine question – has there been much/any evidence of covid spreading through the peleton whilst riding (as opposed to all the indoor interactions in hotels etc). My impression from 2020 was the lack of spread through the peleton suggested that it was pretty difficult to spread covid outdoors.
But what about the plumes of
But what about the plumes of infection?
Yeah I would have thought
Yeah I would have thought that the dispersal effect of riding ~40kph would mitigate much of the chance, it’d need to be a rider with a very high viral load to be able to spread it in that situation, however I’m really surprised at them allowing G to remain on the tour, knowing that he is going to be at sign on and other areas before and after. I don’t really get what he hopes to achieve by remaining on the race beyond risking exposing others.
I think it’s more a case of
I think it’s more a case of you control what you can control, and accept that while you cannot eliminate risk, there are sensible and relatively easy ways you can reduce risks. The risks of spreading/catching COVID outdoors are much, much lower than indoors, and anything that can be done to improve ventilation of any indoor spaces should be prioritised.
It would be interesting to know what kind of viral load is released in any single breath when the individual is heavy breathing for a long period. I’d speculate that while total shedding could be high, any single out breath in a well ventilated space means concentrations in the air are very low.
Ideally the other measures would have been in place sooner to make it less likely that anyone in the peleton has COVID in the first place.
I don’t see that. Unless
I don’t see that. Unless there’s a strong sidewind, if a rider coughs, sneezes, blows his nose etc., where is what comes out going to go, if not into the faces of the riders behind?
Steve K wrote:
I guess it would be almost impossible to determine at which exact point someone is infected in this situation… it takes some time to test positive after being infected, and even longer to be ill (and Cold-19 was either totally asymptomatic or only lightly perceptible for most healthy people!)
Although the survival rate of the virus is certainly much lower outdoors, they often ride so close that any cough or talk could spread it quite efficiently?
“either totally asymptomatic
“either totally asymptomatic or only lightly perceptible for most healthy people”
Got some research on that? I managed to get three confirmed cases. First one was an absolute shocker.
KDee wrote:
And the later ones weren’t. That’s… your immune system doing its job. Everyone in the world has had it now, probably several times, bar babies.
Third dose wasn’t much better
Third dose wasn’t much better than the first. Middle one was just a scratchy throat. I think with something that’s prone to rapid mutation, they’re being wise. And I’m pretty sure most athletes don’t fancy ending their career due to long covid.
KDee wrote:
Same here, I’ve had four goes of it (greedy I know), first came within a toucher of going to A&E as could barely breathe, second and third just like bad colds, fourth like a really, really bad dose of ‘flu. Everyone responds differently, it’s a bit galling to see people for whom it has only ever been a bad cold telling everyone else that’s how they should experience it too.
KDee wrote:
No one wants to get sick. But masks aren’t going to stop covid.
We live in a biological soup. Each breathe you take is chock-a-bloc with viruses (most unknown to science; thankfully, most from families not known to affect animals). You will get at least several respiratory infections every year. Most will be trivial, 1 or 2 maybe make you mildly ill. Every few years you’ll get something where the virus has evolved just enough to make you feel rotten again. Be it some kind of rhinovirus, influenza virus, or coronovirus (of which there a number circulating around in humans). Every 10 to 20 years we see the passage of a virus that causes enough serious illness to raise mortality rates for a season or two .
We do not know of any way to prevent this. Certainly, surgical masks do not. They did not in 1918 – 1919. They didn’t in 2020 – 2022.
They’re going to make fuck all difference at the Tour. Except to further pseudo-scientific medical nonsense and idiocy (i.e. “The Science” – a religious movement largely, which has little to do with the actual scientific process, other than twisting its results), and sate the petty little authoritarians who like to tell others how to live.
The best way forward is to live your life, and have society give good medical care to those who get ill.
Paul J wrote:
Stop COVID? No, but it has been proven to slow transmission rates.
The lethality has significantly dropped off, but whilst it’s still just about more potent than the “common” colds, reducing the likelihood of the virus getting into the peloton is still a reasonable ideal.
I do think that this move is a bit like bolting the stable door after the horse has fled though, with so many riders already affected
ROOTminus1 wrote:
Stop COVID? No, but it has been proven to slow transmission rates.— Paul J
This is simply false. At least if by “proven” we mean “high quality evidence”. Which would mean meta-analyses of randomised, (cluster-)?controlled studies (RCTs).
Stuff like tests with mannequins, or telephone surveys, etc., are very poor forms of evidence, and these are not forms of evidence on which policy should be based.
There is no high quality evidence anywhere showing that masks stop or reduce incidence of respiratory illnesses, including covid19. NO EVIDENCE of sufficient quality that you would want to base decisions on. Just stop claiming there is, because it’s not true.
“At least 20% of people
“At least 20% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, never showed symptoms.:” NIH RESEARCH MATTERS Genetic variant associated with absence of COVID-19 symptoms
Just search for it, plenty of publications, even from the early Chinese period.
Sorry for you, but the vast majority of victims were either overweight, or had serious breathing issues. Cancer and diabetes patients were (are?) curiously also more at risk. Kids were even less sucseptible to show symptoms, with almost no serious risk for healthy individuals…
I got the “19” version early, smell loss was the only sympton (but it lasted for months in my case!). My 90+ yo mother tested at least 3 x positive, at worst it was barely noticeable, although starting from the 3rd time she was vaccinated so it might have helped…
Now every variant of cold (and flu) viruses come with different virulence, including Corona (which has always been the main cold virus)…
How dumb can you get? These
How dumb can you get? These things do not do anything, even if worn religiously. They didn’t do anything in the 2 years of most of the western world wearing them. They’re not going to do anything with some of the Tour caravan wearing them some of the time.
Utter idiocy, largely done to sate the “Something must be done!!” crowd. All it does is create even more plastic waste.
why would a pro-athlete risk
why would a pro-athlete risk their career (among other things) taking a chance on covid ? do they also play russian-roulette in the off-season or when they are bored ?
Why did Geraint Thomas get to
Why did Geraint Thomas get to decide to race with Covid? How is this fair to his team and competitors?
Seems weird to insist on masks in public areas, but allow infected competitors.