Stomach bug hampers Tour of Britain
With the fifth stage of the Tour of Britain kicking off today in Tavistock, the Swiss race leader, Michael Albasini, had to squeeze in a visit with the HTC-Columbia team doctor before the race began.
Sickness seems to be plaguing the tour. First Team Sky had to drop out of the Vuelta a Espana after a virus swept through the riders and staff.
Now HTC-Columbia is suffering from a similar issue in the Tour of Britain. "Half the team have got it," said HTC-Columbia team manager, Brian Holm, to The Guardian this morning.
He added, "Tony Martin was ill yesterday with diarrhoea, Albasini got it in the night and we lost Marco Pinotti yesterday, with illness as well. We will have to see how it goes, perhaps it will get better".
Martin and Pinotti are the reigning national time-trial champions in Germany and Italy, respectively. Pinotti had been chosen by Paolo Bettini to ride for the Italian team in the time-trial competition of the World Championships, held in Geelong, Australia at the end of September.
He was riding the Tour of Britain as a warm-up for World Championships, until the illness forced him to drop out on Tuesday.
The German team for the World Championships has not yet been announced, but it was likely that Tony Martin, the German time-trial champion, would be on the list.
This morning, HTC-Columbia lost Martin to the same illness, and confirmed that Albasini, who leads the Tour of Britain by 1:28 ahead of runner-up Richie Porte, is also suffering from the bug.
“If I can win here, it would be the second GC victory for me,” said Albasini. “That is important to me and the team, and we’ll do what we can do to achieve that”.
The illness is apparently not entirely contained within HTC-Columbia, since Martyn Irvine, for the Irish team, joined Martin in abandoning the race this morning.
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