The Giro continues with two less teams after eight new positives from covid

Steve Kruijswijk, before the start of the sixth stage.LUCA BETTINI / AFP

The Giro considers its anticovid bubble punctured after finding eight positives in the PCRs carried out on the rest day, 1.4% (1,400 per 100,000) of the 571 tests taken between Sunday and Monday and analyzed in a laboratory in Milan.

Despite this, there will be no confinement even for the main bubble, the one configured with cyclists, assistants, directors and technical managers.

“The more tests you do, the more positive you find.

The number seems relatively low to me ”, says the race director, Mauro Vegni.

"We trust.

It is true that we have lost important pieces, I admit this, but the important thing is to get to Milan.

At this moment the danger that we will not succeed is zero, I do not see elements that tell me to stop the Giro ”.

20 cities, 20 different hotels, the Giro, a small walking city, a bubble of bubbles, which displaces more than 2,000 people daily, continues its march to Milan, where it is scheduled to arrive on Sunday, October 25.

The race, which still has two weeks to go, continues, but faces the dreaded Tortoleto walls on Tuesday in the tenth stage without another of his favorites, Steve Kruijswijk, eleventh overall, 1m 24s behind Almeida, and with only 20 teams, as both the Kruijswijk Jumbo and Mitchelton, after testing positive four of their auxiliaries, have withdrawn completely.

Mitchelton had five runners left and the Jumbo still maintained the eight with which it left Palermo on Saturday, October 3.

Likewise, Australian cyclist Michael Matthews, from Sunweb (Kelderman's team, second overall), an assistant from AG2R and another from Ineos were positive.

The Sunweb, despite the positive from Matthews, has decided to continue.

From Lanciano to Tortoreto, a platoon of 20 teams and 146 riders, two teams and 30 cyclists less than those who started the first stage in Palermo left at noon.

After the positive of its leader, Simon Yates, the Mitchelton analyzed all its components and when not giving positive any more decided to continue in the race.

Three days later, noting that there was contagion inside their bubble, the Australian team has completely withdrawn.

Within the bubbles of the equipment, the auxiliaries are the elements that have the most contact with the outside world.

They are the ones who do the shopping in the supermarkets so that the chef has fruit and fresh products in the pantry of his kitchen truck, the ones who interact at the gas stations and those who carry the suitcases from the corridors to the hotel rooms.

“Today we will retest all the teams that have had a problem, and on Thursday we will retest all the teams to verify that the virus was not incubating in some people and had not yet shown its face in the PCRs of the Monday, "adds Vegni, who, last Saturday, reacting to Yates' positive, ratified his desire for the race to reach Milan" provided that a significant number of cases in the rest day tests did not force him to review his position ”.

"It will be the health authorities who will tell us what to do," he said, "but the Giro wants to be a symbol of hope and optimism, and it must come to an end in Milan, on October 25".

The Vuelta, which begins next Tuesday 20 in Irún, is very attentive to everything that happens in Italy.