Almeida Withdraws from Giro with Covid

Joao Almeida suffered flu symptoms overnight and tested positive for Covid. As a result, he has been withdrawn from the Giro d’Italia before the start of today’s stage. The Portuguese rider was in fourth place and led the young riders competition by over ten minutes.

All the other members of his UAE team have tested negative.

“Almeida woke up last night from persistent pain in his throat and the test gave a positive result. We observe strict rules of prevention and, in addition to sanitizing the environments which the team uses each day (cars, buses, hotel rooms, etc.), we keep the athletes themselves in single rooms in order to limit very close contacts. However, despite these precautions they clearly do not provide 100% shelter as we have seen, “ said Michele De Grandi, UAE Team Emirates doctor at the Giro d’Italia.

Mauro Gianetti, Team Principal: “We are obviously deeply upset because Joao and the supporting team were doing an excellent race. Our goals were the podium of the Giro and the white jersey as best young rider and we were fighting to win them both. It is bad news, but this is the reality we have been living every day for two years. We have to accept it and look forward. Now the most important thing is that Joao recovers as soon as possible ”.