Disaster at the Team Picnic PostNL camp - La Vuelta leader Max Poole diagnosed with Epstein-Barr virus

Team Picnic PostNL is in serious need of UCI points to ensure they remain at World Tour level but the upcoming Vuelta a España may not be a good period for the team. With Romain Bardet retired, Fabio Jakobsen out of form; and Oscar Onley, Tobias Lund Andresen and Pavel Bittner straight off the Tour, the team relied on Max Poole to take the lead in the final Grand Tour of the season. But he is now out of competition.

Poole, 7th at this year's Tour of the Alps and 11th at the Giro d'Italia where he had a formidable end to the race and was frequently climbing alongside the best, was the set leader for the team's Vuelta lineup - a mountainous race where he'd have plenty opportunities. But this Wednesday morning the team revealed he was diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus. 

“It’s been difficult few weeks trying to work out what the situation was and I appreciate the support the team has given me during this period," Poole said in a press release issued by the team. "I’m pretty relieved to now understand the root of the problem as it means that I can start to focus on recovery and getting my health back on track. I’m really disappointed to miss the team at the Vuelta, and wish them the best of luck there.”

However this constitutes a big issue for the team, with it's lineup yet to be announced and no-one except for Casper van Uden perhaps lined out to have somewhat of a leading position in the race, although there are few opportunities for the sprinters.

“Max didn’t come away from altitude feeling as we’d hoped, and when he continued to decline during Poland we removed him from the race on medical grounds to conduct thorough investigations," team coach Rudi Kemna explained. Now that we know the full extent of his illness, our focus is simply on looking after him and giving him the time and support he needs to recover fully.”

Camiel Aldershof, head doctor at the Dutch team, worked to diagnose what had been happening with the Briton: “We’ve been looking into the possible reasons for Max’s health problems over the past few weeks, and today we confirmed that he has Epstein-Barr virus with glandular fever. Sadly, this means he’ll need a longer period of rest while we work on getting him back to full health. Now we know what’s behind his symptoms, we can start moving in the right direction with his recovery.”