Remco Evenepoel laughing last as Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes virus continues to affect Tour selections

Remco Evenepoel must be laughing to himself as he watches the Tour de France start list take shape. The Belgian is being touted as the main leader at Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, after spending two months training - not racing - in preparation for the Tour de France. Many riders who did opt to rack up race kilometers were severely punished in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

Evenepoel will head to the Tour de France in July with a rock-solid team. Florian Lipowitz is a co-leader. The two will be supported on the climbs by Jai Hindley (third in the Giro d'Italia), Mattia Cattaneo, and Maxim Van Gils. On the flat and in the crucial team time trial on Day 1, Nico Denz and Tim van Dijke will play key roles. Jan Tratnik is the team’s all-rounder.

It’s worth noting that of the eight riders Red Bull is fielding, several made their appearances particularly in the Tour of Slovenia, which is considered a lesser-known race. Lipowitz won the stage race, and Cattaneo and Tratnik also competed. No Tour de France riders competed in the Tour de Suisse, and in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Van Gils was the only Tour de France rider in the field.

On paper, we had also expected Daniel Felipe Martínez to compete in the Tour; the Colombian was on the long list, at any rate, and had impressed earlier this year with a second-place finish in Paris-Nice. However, he crashed during the neutralization phase of Stage 7 and was forced to withdraw shortly afterward. It’s unclear whether that’s the reason he won’t be competing, but it certainly didn’t help his chances.

Martínez wasn’t the only rider on the Red Bull team who didn’t make it to the finish of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Haimar Etxeberria, Finn Fischer-Black, and Callum Thornley all fell ill, and they weren’t the only ones. Of the 154 riders who started the eight-day stage race in France, only 91 made it to the finish in Nice. That adds up to 63 withdrawals.

Among those involved in crashes, alongside Martínez, were Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM), Oscar Onley (Netcompany INEOS), and Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), among others. But above all, many riders were forced to withdraw from the race because they were sick, weak, and nauseous. The wave of illness in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes was already being referred to simply as the TARA virus, short for the race.

The virus that was going around has already cost Iván Romeo (Movistar), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), and Alessandro Covi (Jayco AlUla) their chances at the Tour de France. They got so sick that they had to rule out racing in July. Netcompany INEOS is waiting to see if Kévin Vauquelin will be fit enough, while at Decathlon, Daan Hoole fell ill. EF Education-EasyPost saw Ben Healy drop out due to illness.

Of the 91 riders who finished the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, a handful of them also fell ill in the days that followed. In the Tour de Suisse and the Tour of Slovenia, it was sweltering hot all week long, which also took a toll on the riders. High temperatures are forecast for the Tour de France this summer.

So you’d better be in top shape when it starts in Barcelona on July 4. In that regard, Evenepoel has proven himself right in recent weeks by opting for a long training period of just over two months after Liège–Bastogne–Liège. He dropped the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes from his schedule and won’t be competing in the Belgian National Cycling Championships either.