Sergio Higuita accuses BORA of forcing him to race sick: "They thought it was an excuse - that I didn't want to race..."

Sergio Higuita will leave Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe at the end of the 2024 season for Astana Qazaqstan Team. The Colombian rider thus ends a three-year stint with the German team, which he recently revealed to have been very tough.

In a very interesting X thread posted by the account @amatiz12, Higuita reveals that, among other things, he was forced by BORA itself to compete sick.

"I started with bronchitis in the first year. After Catalunya I fell ill, and then I had to do the Itzulia, the Flèche Wallonne and then the Liège-Bastogne-Liège. In the Basque Country I had to get off the bike. Until then there was no problem, because they listened to me a lot," Higuita began explaining at CiclismoInternacional.com how at the beginning BORA had no problems with his illnesses.

And as long as the German team was willing to listen, their Colombian rider was paying back with results that include top-5s at Liege and Lombardia, GC win at Catalunya, 2nd place at Suisse and couple more wins.

"Already in the second year they thought it was some kind of excuse, that I didn't want to race. And that wasn't the case. I always want to race. They already knew with the medical studies that it wasn't something I was making up. The Basque Country came and there was a lot of pollen. We Colombians usually have problems with pollen, and that's where I got sicker," adds Sergio Higuita.

Sergio Higuita ended up with no strength

"From there I relapsed again. From the Itzulia to the Ardennes is one week. In that time I couldn't recover, and I asked the team to let me rest for Liège. But they took me to the Amstel Gold Race and the Fleche, and I couldn't finish any of the three. I'm a rider who has always stood out for discipline. I arrived at the Tour de Suisse totally exhausted, and I had to tell the team that I couldn't race," the 27-year-old concluded on the subject.