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The 2020 Tour de France, scheduled to start on Saturday, is edging closer to cancellation after the south of France was placed on red alert due to the spread of Covid-19.<\/p>\nThe 2020 Tour de France, scheduled to start on Saturday, is edging closer to cancellation after the south of France was placed on red alert due to the spread of Covid-19.<\/p>\n
The competition will begin against a backdrop of rising coronavirus cases in France with Nice \u2013 site of the Grand D\u00e9part \u2013 put on red alert on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Dave Brailsford, manager of Team Ineos, said the sport was a \u201ckey part\u201d of a relative return to normality, but accepted there could be no guarantees the competition would make it to the final event in Paris, scheduled on September 20th.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody wants the event to happen,\u201d he said. \u201cBut equally, to take a mature and fair common-sense approach, if there becomes a point where it\u2019s too much of a risk to riders, to teams and to society in general, people need to take that on board as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the defending champion Egan Bernal admitted his back injury is still bothering him on the eve of the Tour.<\/p>\n
Bernal (23) goes into the race as the sole leader of the Ineos Grenadiers after the decision to leave Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas at home.<\/p>\n
But though he looked strong in winning La Route d\u2019Occitanie and coming second in the Tour de l\u2019Ain earlier this month, he withdrew early from the Criterium du Dauphine with back problems which continue to linger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel a little bit of pain in the back to be honest,\u201d Bernal said. \u201cI\u2019m much better than I was in the Dauphine, in the Dauphine it was really bad, the pain.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut these days I\u2019m feeling much better and I hope during the whole Tour to be working hard and trying to recover, especially for the last week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Tour boasts a stacked line-up of contenders who will look to exploit any weakness from Bernal over the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
The main challengers are expected to be the Jumbo-Visma squad, though their own preparations have been hampered.<\/p>\n
Primoz Roglic, who beat Bernal in the Tour de l\u2019Ain, suffered a nasty crash while leading the Dauphine to leave questions over his own condition, while Steven Kruijswijk will not start the race due to a shoulder problem.<\/p>\n
Bernal still expects to see a strong challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they are really something,\u201d he said. \u201cFor sure they will be one of the favourites to win the race. Primoz, in the past races, he was the strongest guy and he was flying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they will be one of the favorites and we need to be really careful with him and also Tom Dumoulin, who was getting better in the last races.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something good for the race to have another strong team, a really, really strong team to fight. And it can be good for us too, for Ineos, because for sure they will need to take some responsibility in the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Brailsford, who is Bernal\u2019s boss for the Tour, had tried to shift the pressure on to Dumoulin, Roglic and others, saying they had to deliver now as their age \u2013 29 and 30 respectively \u2013 meant they were running out of time.<\/p>\n
That was seen as mind games in some quarters as Ineos enter what could be a transitional period, moving away from Froome and Thomas to focus on the youth of Bernal as well as Richard Carapaz (27) and Pavel Sivakov (23).<\/p>\n
But Brailsford insisted he had every confidence in his team in the here and now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst it\u2019s been a fantastic journey and for the rest of the season we\u2019ll focus on Chris and Geraint, for now it\u2019s all focused on here and I\u2019m very, very confident in the team we have here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve won this race more than any other team here, we\u2019ve got riders in this race with more experience and who have won more Grand Tours than any other team in this race.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur collective knowledge of how to win the Tour de France is greater than anywhere else, so we\u2019re very, very confident about that.\u201d<\/p>\n