Tour de France: Four Lotto-Soudal team members sent home after testing positive

Lotto-Soudal said in a statement that four staff members were sent away from the Tour de France after two of them tested positive for coronavirus.

A cyclist rides next to an installation set up for the start of the 107th Tour de France cycling race, in Nice.

Four staff members of the Lotto-Soudal team were sent away from the Tour de France after two of them tested positive for coronavirus, the Belgian team said on Thursday.

“After a PCR test, specific to SARS-Cov-2, revealed two non-negative cases, Team Lotto-Soudal decided to send home two staff people, as well as their roommates. Safety remains priority number one,” Lotto-Soudal said in a statement.

Organisers had said that should two members of a team test positive for coronavirus, the outfit would be excluded from the race, but sources told Reuters that the rule was “expected to be relaxed.”

Organisers said the team were not excluded from the Tour, which starts on Saturday.

Team staff and riders are tested six and three days before the start of the three-week-long race.