Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) may have won Sunday's stage 9 TT at the Giro d'Italia, and taken back the race leader's maglia rosa, but the Belgian rider will now play no further part in the race.
The 22-year-old has tested positive for Covid-19 after today's stage. He performed a routine test for the virus, which came back positive. The development is a major blow for him but also for the race, which has now been denied the hoped-for showdown between Evenepoel and Primož Roglič (Jumbo Visma).
Evenepoel issued a statement via his own social media channels confirming he had tested positive for the virus and that he would be leaving the race as a result. “I am really sorry to be leaving the race," he said. "As part of the team’s protocol, I took a routine test, which unfortunately was positive.
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"My experience here has been really special and I was looking forward to competing over the next two weeks. I can’t thank enough the staff and the riders who sacrificed so much in preparation for the Giro. I will be cheering them on over the next two weeks.”
Evenepoel will leave for Belgium tomorrow, traveling home by car. His team added "all the other Soudal-QuickStep riders and staff were tested and are negative".
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The world road race champion may have won today's stage, but he was expected to gain a lot more time on his rivals in the general classification over the 35km distance. He won the stage by less than one second from Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) while his main rival for the overall, Primož Roglič (Jumbo Visma), was 6th at just 17 seconds.
Evenepoel had ridden a far superior TT on stage 1, when he won the day by a huge margin and put 43 seconds into Roglič over just 19.6km. He won that stage by 22 seconds from runner-up on the day Filippo Ganna, the Ineos Grenadiers rider who was forced out of the race after stage 7 due to Covid-19.
A short time before news of Evenepoel's forced departure from the race emerged on Sunday evening, EF Education-EasyPost confirmed Rigoberto Urán had also tested positive for the virus and was out of the Italian Grand Tour.
