Third sprinter falls victim of illness following Giro d'Italia rest day - Astana's Max Kanter forced to abandon after disappointing start
Cycling
Astana Qazaqstan Team is another one of the teams who's been having far from an ideal Giro d'Italia. Although Lorenzo Fortunato is surprising and sitting within the Top10; in two days the team has seen both leaders Alexey Lutsenko and Max Kanter pull the plug on their participation.
Kanter, such as fellow sprinters Olav Kooij and Ethan Vernon, fell ill during the past few days. The Kazakh team hoped that the rest day would've helped his health improve but this was not the case.
The German rider withdraws from the race with symptoms of an acute respiratory viral infection with fever. He cracked the Top10 of the race only once in the first week - ironically in the day the team reports he fell ill, stage 9 - but has largely been absent from the sprints over the first week.
This was a disappointment for Astana who seek urgent UCI points, since the 26-year old looked in good form right before the Giro and took his first pro win with a dominant uphill sprint at the Tour of Turkey,
Read also
Hope it's not too serious, and they should be able to take some much needed rest, before getting ready for stage hunting duties at this year's TDF. Sprinters' bodies needs more time to recover than nonsprinters do. 4 sprinters out, 2 from Astana is a bit worrying for the Kazahstani team.
Just in
NEW: WorldTour Manager Cyclinguptodate.com (FREE)
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Popular news
Latest comments
- Better safe than sorry. At least his injuries are a lot less severe than they were last year.
santiagobenites14-03-2025 - Well spotted :-)Mistermaumau14-03-2025
- One thing Jonas Vingegaard has in common with Hinault is that they are moaners, although I couldn't see Jonas giving a demonstrator a right hander!Suipedali14-03-2025
- They are surprisingly rare on the pro circuit, around our area, one in four races finishes of with a really steep 500m climb at the end.Mistermaumau14-03-2025
- Give him an uphill sprint, then he may win against pure sprinters.
KerisVroom14-03-2025 - Sad if confirmed but like Tadej, he’ll be happy it didn’t turn out to be a disaster. Curious to know how it happened uphill.Mistermaumau13-03-2025
- Jonas anandons tomorrow. He was saying farewell to teammates and staff at the finish lineCaralladas13-03-2025
- And considering the details coming out, I’d like to hear from all those mocking his annoyance of having to ride in yesterday’s weather, don’t think they’d have ridden to the end that way with a probable broken hand. Also, he was only one of a very large number equally critical that NOBODY criticised, including Jorgenson, Sheffield and the peleton spokesman. O’connor was probably the most upset by it all but doesn’t seem to have spoken about it?Mistermaumau13-03-2025
- I was wondering what really happened, if he was just not yet peaking at this time of the year, or if this just wasn't going to be his year, but apparently the accident affected him.Ride197413-03-2025
- There is good in everyone. Hitler was kind to his dog wasn't he?Cyclingsbestfan13-03-2025