[SPORT] "Cycling is the sport with the highest risk of contagion"

[YaKuZa--BoSs]

Doctors and brokers agree on the danger of close contact in the platoon and on the constant transfers and accommodation in hotels

 

 

Chris Froome is an asthmatic who needs to inhale salbutamol to finish the races. The pathology of the four-time winner of the Tour de France is shared by about 40% of the peloton. Runners, always so exposed to environmental agents, treasure an added risk factor in the coronavirus pandemic, which is primed, according to several studies, with patients with respiratory deficiencies and heart problems, but it is not the only problem ... Cycling also has the aggravation of its practice in very large groups. While soccer brings together 22 protagonists in a 90-minute match or basketball brings together a dozen players, in a platoon about 200 runners gather, with a very close and constant coexistence for more than four hours a day.

Another circumstance that seriously damages his return to the "new normal" is his intrinsic nomadic character. The last edition of the Tour de France displaced 4,500 people daily and for a month, including the advertising caravan. The 22 participating teams mobilized 450 people, counting runners, technicians, masseurs, doctors, mechanics, cooks and the press. During the 21 stages, the cyclists crossed 744 towns and stayed each day in a different hotel.

"Returning to the competition will be very difficult, it will be necessary to test almost daily," predicts Cesáreo López, a doctor who has worked for the Spanish Cycling Federation for 20 years. His experience supports him but he recognizes that the way to go is full of uncertainties: «Of course, cycling is the sport most prone to contagion. There are others who have a closer contact, such as those related to the fight, but none brings together so many practitioners at once. I see it very difficult, very black. The Covid-19 has changed the way we live. Initially, all cyclists will have to undergo permanent PCR and serological tests for antibodies. The doctors and the runners will have to take a form with the health checks ».

The International Cycling Union (UCI) is preparing a draft on the protocol to follow before, during and after the races, which should be completed this week. Some rules of mandatory application for the team doctors, which for now are kept on the lookout. Jesús Hoyos, a Movistar doctor, warns that nothing will be easy. "Cycling is probably the sport that is most at risk, so it must be very controlled, with tests. In our team we are going to start the tests in mid-June, because now it would be hasty, since the competition does not start until the end of July. What is the use of doing a test now, if you can later become infected or have a relapse? We have weekly video conferences with the runners to keep an effective follow-up. Now we tell them to train at half gas, because there is plenty of time to compete again. The first race planned by the UCI is the Vuelta a Burgos, in the last week of June.

Cesáreo López points out that the speed and the generation of energy typical of cycling significantly increases the rate of possible infections: «A person in a daily activity consumes about five liters of air per minute; a cyclist, in a normal effort, reaches 150 liters, but in an intense effort it reaches 250. If the normal safety distance is two meters, in a moving squad it would have to be 20 meters, that is, multiply by 10, because with acceleration, the droplets we expel by breathing travel further. We cannot imagine a race in which the cyclists are separated by 20 meters ». In addition, the doctor of the Spanish Federation adds that everything is complicated by permanent transfers and accommodation in various hotels. «I am already thinking about how to do it in the World Cup in Switzerland [end of September], everything will be very complicated. We will have to eat in turns, "he says.

"MORE DANGER AREA"
José Luis de Santos, former cyclist, former coach and current president of the Association of Professional Cyclists, also ventures a path fraught with difficulties. «It is true that cycling could be the sport most sensitive to contagion. It is certified that the area of action of the remains that we expel when speaking or breathing increases with the speed of movement. In that sense, cyclists have more danger zone. Let's see if we have the UCI protocol soon, "says the former runner, who hopes that the highest international body will clear up doubts. What will happen if a cyclist tests positive in a race, he and the entire team are isolated? To me, the riders have not transmitted their nervousness about the return to activity, but their concern about the future and the announcement of sponsor abandonment. If this year is not run, there will be an unprecedented crisis, "warns De Santos.

Nor does it benefit the high percentage of asthmatics in the peloton. Sports medicine experts assure that the fact that about 40% of cyclists have asthmatic pathologies is due to the maximum pulmonary requirement and the inhalation of external substances present in the environment during the course of the stages. Picaresca and doping have always flirted with the use of the Ventolin. Now, with the Covid-19, asthmatics figure in a vulnerable po[CENSORED]tion group, something that Jesús Hoyos, a Movistar doctor, relativizes as an aggravating factor in the transmission of the disease: “Being asthmatic does not mean that you have more facility for contagion. It could be more severe in the consequences, but we must bear in mind that the runners are young and healthy people. I don't think they have more risks than healthy people of the same age. "