Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme positive for COVID-19

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme has tested positive for COVID-19, sending shockwaves through the famous race.

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme (in car) has tested positive for COVID-19. Picture: Kenzo ribouillard/AFP

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme has tested positive for COVID-19 but all the riders in the peloton were negative, organisers said on Tuesday.

Prudhomme must now leave the race for a week to go into quarantine.

The news comes after four-time TdF champion Chris Froome declared he has “several years of cycling” ahead of him after recovering from last year’s career-threatening Criterium du Dauphine accident.

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Froome, 35, will leave Ineos at the end of the year to join Israel Start-Up Nation.

“If I didn’t think I’d be able to return at 100 per cent after the injury in 2019 I would never have committed to a long-term project,” Froome told Tuesday’s edition of Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport.

Froome, 35, was left out of Ineos’ Tour de France team but is in Italy to compete in the Tirreno-Adriatico, an eight-stage warm-up for the Vuelta a Espana.

He said he “100 per cent understood” Ineos boss Dave Brailsford’s decision to leave him out of the Tour de France, now in its second week.

Chris Froome is back. Picture: Justin Setterfield/Getty

“I’m the first to recognise that I wasn’t yet at the level that I had to reach,” conceded Froome, who broke his neck, femur, elbow, hip and ribs in the crash in France.

Queensland cyclist Taj Jones will join forces with Froome after earning a contract with the Israel Start-Up Nation team.

Jones, 20, is the first member of the Sunshine Coast-based Australian Cycling Academy to secure a contract with a World Tour team.

- with Marco Monteverde

Originally published as Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme positive for COVID-19