cured, Tadej Pogacar reveals he had Covid ten days ago

The Slovenian said on Thursday, on the sidelines of the presentation of the riders in Florence, that he had contracted Covid during his preparation, but that he had fully recovered.

Can Covid-19 return to the Tour de France? While several runners like David Gaudu or Sepp Kuss, who had to give up participating in the Grande Boucle for this reason, had already indicated that they had it in recent weeks, Tadej Pogacar confirmed, Thursday June 27, that they had also had it. contracted “ten days ago”, during a press conference on the sidelines of the presentation of the riders in Florence.

The Slovenian, who has not raced since his victory in the Giro d’Italia on May 26, has had to deal with his rest due to a death in the family, but also with the virus, from which he considers himself “fully recovered”. “JI started training again but my grandfather passed away. I had to go back to Slovenia because I had to see my family, it was important for me to be there. I went back to training camp, then I got Covid 10 days ago“, explained the double winner of the Tour in 2020 and 2021.

“It’s still much less serious than four years ago, especially if your body has been affected in the past. In any case now, the body knows the virus, so it was a bit like a big cold and It went by very quickly. I was completely knocked out for a day, I did a bit of roller cycling, and I came out when I was no longer contagious.”continued the Slovenian, who emerges as the big favorite of this 111th edition.

“There was this question mark and finally I recovered well, I didn’t really have too many problems because of that. So the preparation went pretty well in the end. I’m in great shape.”quickly reassured Pogacar after revealing information that Jonas Vingegaard, who took over from him on stage, was not aware of.

While Tadej Pogacar no longer seems at all bothered by the virus, David Gaudu, who contracted it last week before the French championships, still has some traces. “I’m arriving in the unknown, it leaves its mark, I was tired and had headaches. It seems to be getting back to normal, that’s why we’re giving ourselves a bit of space. We’ll see how it evolves, how my body reacts in the race.”, detailed the Breton. His manager Marc Madiot indicated that his team was going to provide tests for all members of his team every three days.