(Florence) Tadej Pogacar, the big favorite of the Tour de France, revealed Thursday that he contracted COVID-19 ten days ago, while ensuring that he was “fully recovered” forty-eight hours before departure in Florence where the virus is on everyone’s minds again.

“I got sick ten days ago. I had COVID-19, it was a little question mark, but I recovered well and I am fully recovered,” said the Slovenian at the Palazzio Vecchio, a Renaissance jewel where the main leaders met the press.

“It wasn’t that bad. It was just a cold that passed quite quickly, he explained. COVID-19 is no longer as virulent as it used to be, especially if you have already had the virus before. »

The 2020 and 2021 winner fell ill during a training camp at Isola 2000. He “stopped for a full day before getting back on the bike, first on the rollers indoors, then outdoors “.

Another setback disrupted his otherwise “perfect” preparation: the death of his grandfather. Pogacar went to funeral in Slovenia – ‘it was important to me’.

Second for the last two years behind Dane Jonas Vingegaard, the 25-year-old Slovenian aspires to become the first rider since Marco Pantani in 1998 to complete the Giro-Tour double in the same year.

Everyone named him the big favorite, starting with Remco Evenepoel who deemed him “unbeatable” if he remains “safe and sound”.

Because “Pogi” destroyed the competition in May at the Tour of Italy, while his main rivals, Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic were licking their wounds after a heavy collective fall at the Tour of the Basque Country.

Being on the Tour de France is “a victory in itself” and “the rest will just be a bonus”, underlined Thursday Vingegaard who had suffered fractures to the collarbone, ribs and a pneumothorax in this “really terrible” accident. “.

Asked about the possibility of winning the Tour a third year in a row, he replied: “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve worked a lot and I’m not in bad shape. I want to believe it, but we have to wait and see. »

A hard blow, the Dane will not be able to count on his first lieutenant in the mountains, Sepp Kuss, who has withdrawn because he has not sufficiently recovered from COVID-19.

Several runners have been ill in recent weeks, including the Frenchman David Gaudu, who has recovered, and the British rider Tao Geoghegan Hart, who has withdrawn.

Unlike Pogacar, Vingegaard or Roglic, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel therefore presented himself with a mask on his face in front of the press.

“I don’t want to relive the same thing I experienced last year in the Giro, I just want to be careful,” said the Fleming who, in 2023, had to abandon the Tour of Italy due to the virus , while he was its leader.

Evenepoel, who was also involved in the fall in the Basque Country with fractures to his collarbone and shoulder blade, will aim for “a stage victory” while wanting to “finish as high as possible in the general classification”, but without put “no pressure”.

“We know that COVID-19 is making a comeback. We are careful to get back into the habit of barrier measures, even if reflexes have been lost a little. We are facing the major event of the season,” commented the manager of the Décathlon-AG2R La Mondiale team, Vincent Lavenu.

At the start of the week, Tour director Christian Prudhomme told AFP that masks would be “made available” if needed, but that there would be no health protocol, as was the case. case at the height of the health crisis.

Far from his concerns, the atmosphere went up a notch on Thursday in Florence for the presentation of the teams in the early evening on Piazzale Michelangelo, which overlooks the city, an open-air museum, and the Arno river.

This 111th edition marks the first departure from Italy in the history of the Tour de France, a hundred years after Ottavio Bottecchia’s first Italian victory in 1924.

It will end, after three weeks of fighting and suffering, on July 21 in Nice, and not in Paris as usual, because of the Olympic Games.