Bora-hansgrohe has said one of its riders who tested positive for Covid19 this morning, causing the team’s withdrawal from Bretagne Classic, was negative for the virus when re-tested later in the day.
The team has hit out at the UCI’s protocols, saying it had pulled out of the race just before the start but when it later tested all the riders and staff, none were positive for the virus.
It now believed its rider and team had been the victim of a “false positive” test and believed one test alone was not enough to force a team out of a race.
On the Tour de France any rider who tests positive for the virus will have to leave the race and two positives in a team will mean the whole team must withdraw.
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"It looks like my concerns are being confirmed. It is known that PCR tests have a certain rate of error and thus produce false positive results,” Bora-hansgrohe team manager Ralph Denk said of the Covid19 testing system.
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“This in itself would not be a problem if there were the
possibility to check the results immediately in the case of a positive finding.
“In the anti-doping regulations, an A Sample and a B
Sample are provided, precisely for this reason. If the A Sample is positive,
the result is checked with the B Sample.”
However, the same situation was not in place for Covid19
tests, nor were there certified labs for testing, he added.
“We are talking about athletes who have prepared for a
race for weeks or months and then might not be allowed to start the event due
to a false finding,” Denk said, adding his sponsor’s investment could not be
achieved today because of the testing system.
“I think adjustments must be immediately made here. We
also require certainty regarding testing procedures and strategy,” Denk said.
“If we don't have this, we will soon have serious issues,
because who wants to invest in a lottery game as a serious company?”
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