Tour de France: Sir Dave Brailsford says nobody knows if they will reach Paris as French government introduce tougher exclusion rules
Four members of Lotto Soudal team sent home after positive coronavirus tests; COVID-19 exclusion rules toughened hours before opening stage
Last Updated: 29/08/20 11:33am
Ineos Grenadiers boss Sir Dave Brailsford has admitted nobody can be sure that this year's Tour de France will reach a conclusion as the exclusion rules were made stricter hours before the race.
The number of daily cases in France reached a new post-lockdown high of 7,379 on Friday, fuelling speculation among fans and media that the race, which starts on Saturday, would not reach Paris on September 20.
"We've been working with the organisers and they really have done everything possible to make the event work," Brailsford said.
Yet he added: "We don't know, nobody knows if we're going to reach Paris."
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Four members of the Lotto Soudal team were sent home on Thursday after a mechanic and a caretaker tested positive.
Brailsford was speaking before French health authorities introduced stricter coronavirus regulations just hours before the race was set to start.
The government's interministerial crisis committee ruled that a team should be pulled out if two or more of its members test positive within seven days, race organisers said on Saturday.
Until now this year's race, which gets under way in Nice on Saturday, was operating under International Cycling Union (UCI) guidelines for teams to be excluded if two or more riders were to test positive over the same period.
The new regulations from the committee, which overrules the UCI, cover support staff as well as riders, organisers told Reuters. Tour teams comprise eight riders and a maximum of 22 support staff.
Organisers however said that the Lotto Soudal team remain in the race because the stricter measure did not take effect until Saturday.
Ineos' Egan Bernal is the defending champion, but has admitted his back injury, which caused him to abandon the Criterium du Dauphine, is still bothering him on the eve of the race.
"I feel a little bit of pain in the back to be honest," Bernal said. "I'm much better than I was in the Dauphine, in the Dauphine it was really bad, the pain.
"But these days I'm feeling much better and I hope during the whole Tour to be working hard and trying to recover, especially for the last week."
