At the present moment, all means are good to stay safe from being infected by Covid-19. Especially when you organize a sport event as big as the Tour de France 2020. And it is to prevent from any risk that ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation) – the company organizing the Great Loop – has decide to set up a Covid-19 special cell designed as a mobile laboratory that will be available all along the Tour de France 2020, starting from August 29, 2020.
Thus, ASO has said in a press release published on Thursday July 23, 2020 that the Tour de France 2020 will be fitted with a mobile laboratory to “perform tests on the ground during the Tour de France if need be in case of symptoms” the organization says. Moreover, the mission of the twelve people in the lab will be to maintain the preventive measures related to Covid-19 contamination factors.
In other words, Tour de France 2020 laboratory must be used to perform tests on those organizers call the “race bubble” naming racers, officials, organization members, and staff. This is actually for the start in Nice that the lab will have a great deal of work since organizers have not planned tests on racing days, only on resting days.
Of course, we can easily imagine a saliva test or a PCR test on D+1 of the traditional anti-doping controls, still vital in races like the Tour. By the way, spit-in-a-cup tests will be privileged by the protocol of the Union cyclist international (UCI).
