Tour de France stage winner Miguel Ángel López will not be joining his new Movistar teammates at their training camp in Almería this week after testing positive for COVID-19, the team announced on Tuesday.
According to a brief statement, the team said López tested positive on Monday after being notified he had come into close contact with another COVID-19 positive individual. He had tested negative before travelling to Europe from his home in Colombia.
López rose as high as third overall at the 2020 Tour de France after winning the mountain stage to the Col de la Loze in the September edition of the race after the coronavirus pandemic forced organisers to shift the race from its normal July slot. He dropped to sixth behind overall winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) in the time trial to La Planche des Belles Filles.
After the Tour de France, Astana manager Alexandre Vinokourov confirmed that López would be leaving the team, and the Giro d'Italia - shifted to October - would be his final race with Astana.
López crashed out of the Giro on the first stage individual time trial when he hit a bump in the road and careened into the roadside barriers. He suffered a gash near his iliac artery that required surgery to close but avoided any further serious injuries. It was his second crash of the shortened season after he went down on a wet and slick descent in the opening stage of the Tour de France in Nice, and it kept him off the bike for 10 weeks.
His arrival to the Movistar team was announced in November, and by December, López was back to training in preparation for the Almería camp with an eye on starting the 2021 season in March.
The team did not state whether Lòpez had any effects from the coronavirus, which can go without symptoms in more than half of people who are infected but can cause severe illness. COVID-19 has killed nearly two million people worldwide since the virus emerged one year ago in China.
