The latest rider to fall prey to Covid-19 at Vuelta a España is Sam Bennett. He also missed out on the time trial stage scheduled for Tuesday, August 30. The current state of the rider was confirmed by Ryan Mullen, his teammate at Bora-Hansgrohe. Mullen said during an interview:
It’s shame for Sam and the team and myself, am is a great guy and he’s come back to his best form and unfortunately, Covid has caught up to him probably along with another 10 or 20 guys in the race – I don’t know how many. Clearly, someone somewhere brought it in and now it’s going around all the teams.
He also talked about Mads Pedersen saying:
I’m pretty sure he would have won the green jersey. Probably now Mads Pedersen is going to walk all the way to Madrid with one finger in his nose with the green jersey. It is what it is but it’s a shame though
Sam held the 147th position overall, which means that he would have been the 11th person to ride down the trial. Unfortunately, when the other riders were rolling out, it became clear that Sam would not be riding today. This makes Sam the 8th rider to withdraw due to Covid-19, while he is the 12th person to abandon the Vuelta.
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In the Netherlands, Sam won 2 stages. He was also chasing classification leader Mads Pedersen of Trek-Segafredo. Mads had a lead of 5 points over Sam and Sam was giving him a run for the green jersey.
It was also confirmed by his team, Bora-Hansgrohe, that Sam is the latest addition to the list of those affected by the Covid-19 wave at Vuelta a España:
Sam Bennett returned a positive antigen test this morning, and also showed some symptoms. Therefore we decided that he wouldn’t start today’s stage
Also Read: Ethan Hayter Gets Hit With Covid-19
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