Tour de France Director Tests Positive for COVID-19
Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme has tested positive for COVID-19 and will be under quarantine for a week.
France’s Prime Minister Jean Castex will receive a COVID-19 test after spending part of the weekend with Prudhomme at the Tour.
No riders in the peloton tested positive.
After the first round of COVID-19 testing at the Tour de France, all the riders in the peloton were negative, organizers said on Tuesday, but Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme has tested positive.
Prudhomme, who is asymptomatic, said he had tested negative for coronavirus three times before the start of this year’s race on August 6, 20, and 27. He will now leave the race for a week to go into quarantine.
“I leave the Tour now for a week, I’m going to do what any French employee would in this kind of case,” he confirmed to AFP.
“I’ll be watching the Tour on television, something I haven’t done for 15 years,” added Prudhomme who has been in charge of the Tour since 2007.
He said he was not surprised that the peloton were all negative, saying “the riders live like monks or soldiers.”
His role as chief organizer of the Tour de France means he attends a large number of social events during the race. On Saturday, September 5, he accompanied French Prime Minister Jean Castex when the premier visited the race. The Prime Minister’s office confirmed that Castex will be receiving a COVID-19 test after Prudhomme tested positive, and noted that both wore masks and respected social distancing rules.
Concern has been growing over the risk of a second wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in France, with the number of new cases surging even though the death rate remains relatively low compared to the highs in the spring.
Intense interest had surrounded the results of the 652 swab tests as the riders were arriving by bus at the stage 10 start line on the Atlantic Island of Oleron.
Under the strict coronavirus protocol in place any team that returned two or more positive PCR tests, be they riders, managers, doctors, masseurs or mechanics, risk expulsion.
The test results were announced ahead of Tuesday’s spectacular run between the two Atlantic Islands of Oleron and Re, both of which are now connected to the French mainland by road bridges.
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