Trek-Segafredo have confirmed that their Italian rider Fabio Felline has had to finish his season early after being diagnosed with toxoplasmosis.
Felline abandoned stage 8 of the Tour de France and he was subsequently diagnosed with toxoplasmosis. After some much-needed rest, a new blood test indicated the parasite seemed to be gone.
However, despite being able to return to training, Felline sensed that his body was not reacting like it should be.
“I can train hard,” he said, “that’s not the problem, but it takes me 2 or 3 days to recover from an intensive effort and that’s not normal. In the races I have done after the Tour, I felt immediately I could not go as deep as I wanted and after the races I always felt really weak.”
Team doctor, Nino Daniele said: “A new blood test confirmed Felline’s body is still fighting against the parasite. The only thing he can do now is rest, rest and rest. So the best thing was to take him off the roster for the next races and to end his season to give his body the chance to recover completely.”
“Of course, I would have preferred to end the season in a better way,” said Felline. “I had a good first part of the season and I wanted to confirm my good shape with some results in the second part as well. Unfortunately, my body decided otherwise. Now I will take a long rest and I hope to heal up quickly because I have my mind set on 2018 already. I hope I can start preparing the next season as soon as possible. I have proven in the past I could come back stronger after an injury and I will do that again!”
