l. If he was in first the optics would be really difficult

It presents an interesting scenario or at least it makes a huge difference that Bernal is in second and not in first. Understood what the stated rules are, but pulling the whole team (including Bernal) out of the race when the riders are not positive (but parts of their bubble are) would certainly be controversial. If he was in first the optics would be really difficult, if he remains in second it makes the optics of pulling him from the race a bit better (still difficult in second, put pulling out the race leader without them being positive would seem almost as bad as cancelling the whole race).

But to your point, internally they need to take very serious action because by the rules they are one strike away from being sent home.

It presents an interesting scenario or at least it makes a huge difference that Bernal is in second and not in first. Understood what the stated rules are, but pulling the whole team (including Bernal) out of the race when the riders are not positive (but parts of their bubble are) would certainly be controversial. If he was in first the optics would be really difficult, if he remains in second it makes the optics of pulling him from the race a bit better (still difficult in second, put pulling out the race leader without them being positive would seem almost as bad as cancelling the whole race).

But to your point, internally they need to take very serious action because by the rules they are one strike away from being sent home.

The rule that the its 2 strikes inclusive of staff is stupid.

It should just be 2 rider positives and you are out.

Why. Because a team staff member from Team A has no excuse to interact with Team B. Thus a staff member can only spread it inside Team A.

A rider from Team A can, in theory spread it to Team B by breathing at 100% FTP on a climb and the following riders pick it up (this is a theory, we have not proof yet), but riders from Team A and Team B do interact with each other without masks, not physically distanced.

So as soon as riders from Team A are positive they can, in theory spread it to team B. Staff from Team A could be sick as dogs, or asymptomatic and not spread it to riders in Team A or they could spread it to riders in Team A. Once they spread it to their own team it could crossover to other teams. But in theory, staff from Team A don't spread it to Team B. So as soon as staff are positive, isolate them and replace them with new staff and keep rolling with the event. I don't know if in Bundesliga, or MLB, or MLS if positive staff from Team A affects Team A getting benched.

France isn't immune to making rules just to make rules.

Look at the French national soccer team. Players are testing positive and they are still practicing and playing. Mbappe tested positive and the team still plans to play their next match in a week. Presumbly they are still training, sans Mbappe.

It will be very interesting to see the test results after today.

At least we know the Tour would never cover up or explain away testing results to preserve the race.

Everyone in the bubble tested negative at the start (needed to enter the bubble....two Lotto staff were sent home when they tested positive before the start). 650 people were tested, with four positives.....so 0.62% caught the virus despite the bubble after just over a week. That's not encouraging, especially given the exponential nature of community spread.

The encouraging part is after the Dauphine, various national Championships, Milano San remo etc etc etc, the riders have not picked this up off each other or the fans roadside. The support staff have picked it up off their interactions with the public. Now the riders may be incubating this after being exposed to their staff (example Fernando Gaviria at UAE Tour), but after a month of racing they don't appear to be giving it to each other or getting it off screaming fans (YET).

3 days into increasing deaths in France. Is this an unfortunate start of the lag time from cases?

Just saw a rider drop out during the relative flat stage 11 not looking well. I wonder if riders who drop out like that are re-tested in the days following.

I'd ask to see a breakdown of surviving patients regardless of initial hospitalization who have FULLY recovered from the virus with zero lingering issues / organ damage vs those who have damage or ongoing symptoms for months and months afterwards. There are plenty of low BMI athletic types who have been through the virus who are struggling in its aftermath. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54031587

Just saw a rider drop out during the relative flat stage 11 not looking well. I wonder if riders who drop out like that are re-tested in the days following.

What optics? I think people understand the situation the world is in. Riders too, as they mostly say, "We'll be happy to race all the way to Paris, but understand if that doesn't happen"

You don't understand the optics of pulling out the race leader (or perhaps the race leader who is also the defending champion) when he hasn't tested positive, as say compared to the 100th placed rider or even the 2nd place rider (or anyone who is also not the defending champion)? Sure people understand COVID, but I would also say it would be pretty unprecedented to pull the leader out of a race because of a test result for someone else, and no matter what the rules are this would create some serious criticism and depending on who it was and how they were placed would put a huge asterisk against the final result of the race.

There's a huge difference between pulling a rider who tested positive versus pulling a rider who did not test positive (but one of his support staff tested positive). However, according to the rules they set up, these are administratively the same. If you don't call that optics, what do you call it? And I'm not saying the rules are wrong or imprudent, just saying they set up a potentially very delicate, controversial and perhaps unfair situation for some rider.

I'm pretty sure the reaction of the riders would be a lot different for pulling out a rider with a positive test (absolutely the right thing to do, no rider would question this) versus pulling out a rider who did not test positive, but where a support staffer tested positive (in accordance with the rules they set, certainly a reasonable precaution, but at some level unfair because you are punishing the rider for the actions of another, not their own).

My hope is the couple of positive tests scared everyone straight and they make it through incident free. I'm only speculating, but I would assume that even within the bubbles the riders and staff are taking precautions, masks and distancing to the extent possible because the stakes are so high, especially for the teams with top placed GC riders.

The backpedalling already started: https://www.cyclingnews.com/...cond-rest-day-tests/


In an apparent overnight change in position, ASO and the UCI, in consultation with the French government, have decided to reset any counter before the next round of planned COVID-19 testing, which will take place on and around the second rest day in the Alps.
“We are resetting the counters for the next round of tests. However, if before those tests one of the four teams has another positive then they will be out,” a source told Reuters.


The key part of the above is, "In consultation with the French Government"....
Now what scientifically changed between the start of the Tour de France and now for the French govt to have one set of rules starting in Nice and be supportive of changing those rules yesterday. Nothing changed in terms of how Covid19 is transmitted and it makes zero sense to wipe the slate clean starting the next rest day. Cases are cases. Now if they said, "we will treat rider cases different from staff cases". If 2 riders test positive the entire team is out in addition to the riders who test positive. If support crew test positive, they get isolated and are out of the Tour, but clear riders can keep riding. That would make sense from a science perspective in terms of virus spread.
This latest reset of the counter makes zero sense (even though I am glad they are resetting).

As I said in an earlier comment, once they allowed this to go, any major disruption or cancellation of the race amounts to the French government admitting they made a mistake to let the race happen. This reset lessens the chance of the disruption, so protects the French government from looking stupid. Don't underestimate how much governments and executives are driven by vanity and the perception of success (even if they actually failed, the POTUS being the best example). Based on reading the comments on this thread I get the perception some people think if say 5 riders (or even one) get COVID over the three week tour it would constitute some major public health crisis. We need to stop these unrealistic scenarios and exaggeration of consequences. One or five, otherwise healthy, young athletes getting COVID is not a tragedy, undesirable yes. The chances of them dying would be very low, yes we see examples of organ damage, but even that is not common. How many broken femurs and hips, or people in comas do we from pro bike racing. Is the average rider at more risk from COVID or a crash like happened at the Tour of Poland? So balance COVID risk against the existing risk and both of those between all the economic activity and enjoyment for the fans watching something normal amidst all this chaos. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

What I will agree was probably a poor decision is announcing it. If everyone thought they were one step away, they would probably be more careful. Giving them a known reprieve might let them take down their guard.

The other part is, these are highly paid professionals engaged in what is already a somewhat dangerous sport. They are taking a lot of precautions, but you can never get the risk to zero. No matter what they do, someone will criticize them. But it's like everyone ignores the reality, we may never have a cure or vaccine for COVID or not for many years. People need to start thinking about what life is going to look like in a world without a cure, because although we can live in a fearful bubble world for 6 months (which is arguably prudent as there may be a quick fix or at least to get a handle on how deadly this is and what are the most effective precautions) we cannot do this forever. People will go crazy, wish they were dead because life is so boring.

Paid professionals, taking relatively well understood risks, with a lot of precautions in place is reasonable, even if the result is a few riders get COVID (because that is one of the known possible risks and nobody forced any of the riders to do anything). So as long as I don't hear the riders complaining about their own safety, I don't see any reason to question any of the decisions of the race organization or the French government.

Here is my favorite way to look at data now that we are in this "second wave" where hospitalizations and deaths do not seem to track to cases like they did in the beginning. The nut is that while France's new daily cases are through the roof, deaths have not changed. At all.