DOLE, France: Geoffrey Bouchard became the first Tour de France rider to withdraw from racing with COVID-19, his AG2R-Citroen team announced on Saturday.
“During the (seventh) stage (on Friday) I didn’t feel good. It’s a big disappointment because we just got into my favorite terrain, the mountains,” Bouchard said in a team statement.
Bouchard, 30, won the mountains classification at the 2019 Tour in Spain and last year’s Giro d’Italia.
AG2R-Citroen said the rest of the squad that Bouchard was isolated from was negative for COVID-19.
(This story corrects the age in paragraph three to 30, not 27)