EF Pro Cycling directeur sportif Fabrizio Guidi says that the riders and the staff present in the Giro d’Italia were not informed about that letter sent to UCI and that they feel safe and they want to continue.
“All the group here wants to race on and until Milan. We want to race as we have so far, with our hearts and the desire to win,” Guidi told RAI. “We feel safe in the bubble, we have from the start. Of course there’s a pandemic but we feel safe and we want to carry on.”
Giro officials, other teams and fans reacted harshly on EF Pro Cycling proposal of stopping the Grand Tour after Sunday’s stage to Piancavallo, accusing Jonathan Vaughters of lying and being condescending towards the Italians and enormous work done by Giro d’Italia staff to make the race possible.
“This is a suggestion, we are not threatening to leave the race,” Vaughters said. “When we look at 11 positive tests on the last rest day, that brings you to a 2% positive rate in the race bubble”.
“Given the close quarters of hotels, of the peloton and that there is inevitably some interaction between teams in the race, we thought it was our responsibility to ask RCS not to push their luck… it could become chaotic.”
