Almeida forced to retire from Giro d’Italia

The Portuguese, who suffered flu symptoms during the night, tested positive for Covid.

All the other members of the team, staff and riders, are negative.

“Almeida woke up last night from persistent pain in his throat and the test gave a positive result. We observe strict rules of prevention and, in addition to sanitizing the environments which the team uses each day (cars, buses, hotel rooms, etc.), we keep the athletes themselves in single rooms in order to limit very close contacts. However, despite these precautions they clearly do not provide 100% shelter as we have seen, “ said Michele De Grandi, UAE Team Emirates doctor at the Giro d’Italia.

Mauro Gianetti, Team Principal: “We are obviously deeply upset because Joao and the supporting team were doing an excellent race. Our goals were the podium of the Giro and the white jersey as best young rider and we were fighting to win them both. It is bad news, but this is the reality we have been living every day for two years. We have to accept it and look forward. Now the most important thing is that Joao recovers as soon as possible ”.