Dave Brailsford expects positive coronavirus tests at Tour de France

Dave Brailsford expects there will be positive Covid-19 tests announced at this year’s Tour de France, after all team staff and riders underwent coronavirus testing during Monday’s rest day in La Rochelle.

“It’s likely there will be issues but I wouldn’t expect our team to have any,” he said, while acknowledging that waiting for Covid-19 test results for staff and riders to drop into an inbox, on the morning of the Tour’s 10th stage, was not to every team manager’s liking.

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Team doctors will be able to access test results at 9am (BST) on Tuesday. If two members of a team’s entourage test positive, the team will be expelled from the Tour. The Ineos Grenadiers team principal described the health protocols on the race as restrictive but: “In the main we are doing OK.”

Brailsford said: “We figured that the high-risk area is when everybody sits down to eat. They take their mask off and sit together for longer than 15 minutes and that’s one of the riskiest scenarios. That’s why we brought a second chef.

“We have our kitchen truck, so we have one chef cooking for the riders as normal and the second chef cooking for all of the staff. All of the staff have eaten outside [the hotel] since we got here. Once you buy into it, it’s OK really.”

Despite some fans without masks crowding around riders during the Pyrenean stages, Brailsford described the Tour so far as very positive, saying: “All the teams, the organisers, ASO, have pulled together to make it happen. It’s been well thought through. It feels a little bit more organised and, dare I say it, less chaotic than a normal Tour.”

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His team leader, the defending champion, Egan Bernal, is in second place overall, behind Primoz Roglic of Jumbo-Visma but Brailsford admitted their Tour had got off to a rocky start. “That first stage in Nice did something to the race. It scared everybody. It was an unsettling experience for the riders. It was so dangerous, it was so chaotic, that it shook everybody and that set the tone.”

Brailsford suggested the days spent relentlessly pace-making by Roglic’s all-star team had suited Bernal. “We’re second overall, we’ve had a bit of an armchair ride, and Jumbo-Visma have lost Tom Dumoulin off GC which is surprising.”

Of his rival team’s performance he said: “It’s tricky to manage a strong team and you have to know how and when to use the strength.

“At times, if you’ve got one rider who’s super-strong then you can kill your own team, if you’re not careful. But they’ve taken it on and you have to respect them for that.

“If somebody else is willing to take the strain of the race, and we can benefit from that, if they’re willing to put the work in and expend the energy, then it’s possible for everybody to benefit from that.”

Bernal, beset by back problems as the Tour began, is now showing signs of his best form. “Egan’s looking good,” Brailsford said. “We thought we were fighting a two-pronged attack with Roglic and Dumoulin, but it’s down to one, so we’d definitely take where we’re at right now. We think we can win.”