Riders Faced With Choice Olympics or Tour De France

Riders May Have To Choose Olympics Or Tour de France in 2021 due to the covid-19 restrictions in Japan

After reports emerged stating that in July athletes will have to quarantine for 14 days after arriving in Tokyo for the Olympic Games, a wrench was thrown in the wheels of many athletes who planned to bounce over to the games straight after the Tour de France.

6 Days is all that separates the end of the Tour de France on July 18th and the mens Tokyo Olympic road race on July 24th. The same dilema strikes the women’s peloton as the Giro Rosa finishes on July 11th, just 14 days ahead of the women’s race in Tokyo on the 25th of July.

Riders and national team staff were expected to travel to Japan after the Tour de France and Giro Rosa, with limited quarantines because they were part of pre-race UCI-sanctioned bubbles, that were supposed to have quarantined before travel or received the covid-19 vaccine. While there was a program called “Athlete Track” set in place to screen athletes, the latest news out of Japan is that the 14- Day quarantine will not have any leeway, even for the riders.

Now the major dilemma that the riders face is that their professional teams will likely not let their star riders miss the biggest marketing opportunity of the year in the Tour de France. Remember, its the professional teams that pay majority of the riders salaries and not the National teams, who the riders represent and race for at the Olympic Games.

Thy Olympic Games have undoubtedly become the most prestigious 1 day event to win in cycling, as an athlete can ride 4 years of a solid marketing campaign to follow a gold medal victory, as we’ve seen with Greg van Avermaet who won the gold medal in Rio who has since been known as Golden Greg. With this in mind, we can see why riders might consider re-arranging their Calendar and opting for a Giro – Olympic Games Calendar as opposed to a Tour de France run in to the games.

So in some ways, we could see a very interesting run into the Games as riders like Mathieu Van der Poel already saying that he will choose the Olympics if he has to make the choice between the Tour and the Games. Gold medal hopeful in the Time trial and potential road race as well, Remco Evenepoel has already selected the Giro d’Italia route as his approach for Rio, so there is a good chance that we’ll see the young Belgian go for gold, but we haven’t confirmed with Ineos as to what the gold medal’s number one contender, Filippo Ganna’s plans are for the upcoming season.

Stay tuned for more details on the story as we approach the Olympic Games in July.