"I don’t want it to end like my last Giro" - Remco Evenepoel shows up with a face mask at press conference

Visma | Lease a Bike is returning to a partial corona protocol during this Tour de France. And not only the Dutch formation is on high alert, because Remco Evenepoel also appeared in front of the media with a face mask on during a press meeting on the day of Tour de France team presentation.

"I don’t want it to end like my second Giro, last year," said Evenepoel, who had to abandon the Giro d'Italia in 2023 after contracting COVID-19. He was leading the general classification at the time. "It feels a bit safer in this press room with a mask," the 24-year-old rider laughed. "We’ll also be in contact with a lot of people in the coming hours, so we have to be careful." 

"You don't have to worry about me being sick now. It is better than last week," concluded Evenepoel. Last Sunday, the Belgian did not defend his Belgian title because he was (according to official informations) suffering from a cold.

"Many riders came out of the Dauphiné with a cold," Evenepoel said earlier this week at Het Nieuwsblad. "Some even with something worse. I was lucky that it never completely broke through for me, until I trained in bad weather for a few days after the Dauphiné and it happened anyway. I was never super sick, but I did have a slightly elevated heart rate."