Infections on the rise

Corona concerns: Tour reintroduces mask requirement

Tadej Pogacar and Co. will have to wear masks again from now on.(Bild: AFP/APA/Marco BERTORELLO)

Due to increasing corona cases, the organizers of the Tour de France have once again introduced a mask requirement in certain areas. There had been no request from the teams, but they were seeing corona cases almost daily and were therefore introducing the measures, a Tour spokesperson told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

The Tour announced that until the end of the tour on July 21 in Nice, masks must be worn when coming into contact with the riders. This applies to the respective bus parking lot, the area behind the finish line and the two mixed zones set up for media representatives.

Despite corona at the start
Officially, there have only been a few coronavirus cases so far, but testing is no longer carried out in every team. The number of unreported cases is therefore probably significantly higher, which record stage winner Mark Cavendish also confirmed: "I know that there are riders who are riding the Tour with corona." Cavendish's teammate Michael Mörkov dropped out on Thursday due to a positive corona test. Superstar Tadej Pogacar had fallen ill with corona in preparation.

Defending champion Jonas Vingegaard has to do without his noble helper Sepp Kuss due to a Covid illness. Time trial world champion Remco Evenepoel and Vingegaard already consistently wore masks in areas with many people in the first two weeks of the Tour. Evenepoel had to abandon last year's Giro while in the lead due to an infection.