Carapaz, who finished third in the Tour of Italy at the beginning of this month, suffered the infection during a training in Ecuador. He now stays in his home country to recover. “Our medical team, together with his doctors in Ecuador, has currently discouraged and competitions. That is why Richard will not participate in the Tour de France this year,” says EF Education-Easypost’s statement.
“We all sympathize with Richard,” responds team boss Jonathan Vaughters. “He came out of the Giro in a great form and kicked enormously high wattages on training. He sacrificed a lot to reach that level, so the timing really couldn’t have been worse. We know how much the tour means to him, so to lose him so shortly before the game is a huge blow.”
Carapaz: “Health always comes first”
“With great sadness I have to inform you that I miss the Tour de France through a stomach and intestinal infection,” writes Carapaz on social media. “Not the best news, but health always comes first. Thank you for your messages and support, good luck to the team.”
Carapaz, end laureate of the Giro in 2019, won the seventeenth ride to Superdévoluy in the Tour last year and was also showing off the BolletjeStroi as the winner of the mountain classification afterwards. The Ecuadoran is now aiming for a final win in the Tour of Spain, which starts on August 23 in Turin, Italy.
