Movistar is left without its sole leader three days after arriving in Paris. Enric Mas has tested positive for covid in one of the internal controls that the teams carry out on their cyclists before each stage, as reported by the telephone structure. The Majorcan is "in good health" despite the contagion but has not taken the start of the nineteenth stage of the Tour de France.
Mas has been forced to leave when he was eleventh overall, 24 minutes and eight seconds behind the leader, Jonas Vingegaard, who caresses his first victory on the Champs-Élysées.
It will be the first time that the Spaniard does not arrive in Paris since in his three previous participations in the French round he did finish. In fact, the cyclist from Artà did not know what it was like to leave a three-week big since he has also finished the four Vueltas a España that he has run.
This is the sixteenth positive in the platoon for coronavirus on this Tour, two of them Movistar cyclists. Imanol Erviti did not start on Thursday and this Friday Mas, who arrived at the start of Copenhagen with great confidence of being able to improve his fifth position of 2020.
However, the race has been a continuous series of disappointments for the Spaniard, who only found a good pedal stroke in the Alpe d'Huez stage (12th) where he practically kept the pace of Pogacar and Vingegaard until the end and barely lost three seconds with the strongest. Twice second in the Vuelta a España, the Mallorcan is still unable to get on the podium in the Tour.
In the Pyrenees, Spanish cycling has lost three of the nine riders that it had in contention in this Tour because on Tuesday Marc Soler reached the finish line out of control, more than 57 minutes away, suffering from vomiting and intestinal problems.
Without Mas, the first classified Spaniard is Luis León Sánchez (Bahrain), who at 38 years old is fifteenth after the aforementioned abandonment.
