Mitchelton-SCOTT has announced that they will withdraw its teams from the next period of racing, regardless of the individual Government Regulations in place in relation to the ongoing spread of Covid-19. Amongst the races they will now no longer be taking part in are Strade Bianche, Paris-Nice, Ronde van Drenthe and Milan-San Remo.
The news follows on from announcements from a number of other teams that they would not be taking part in Strade Bianche this weekend. EF Pro Cycling, Jumbo-Visma and Parkhotel Valkenburg all announced earlier that they would not participate in the Italian one-day race which takes place on Saturday.
The period of consideration for Mitchelton-SCOTT will run from 04/03/2020 to 22/03/2020 and will include the following races:
• Strade Bianche (men and women)
• GP Industria (men)
• Paris-Nice (men)
• Tirreno-Adriatico (men)
• Ronde van Drenthe (women)
• Danilith Nokere Koerse (women)
• Milan-SanRemo (men)
• Trofeo Alfredo Binda (women)
The UCI and the race organisers have each been notified of the decision. During this period, the team said that the situation will be closely monitored and decisions for the following period will be made.
The team stated the main reasons for these withdrawals which are listed below:
• We, as Team Doctors and the wider team, have a duty of care to protect health and wellbeing of all our riders and staff. We will not have any input into, or control over, the measures that race organisers may or may not put in place to manage the COVID-19 risks.
• We are a moving, international logistical puzzle, with staff and riders travelling between different countries with different health systems and strategies around COVID-19. Constant travel will increase the health risks and make management of logistics, potential quarantine periods, etc, extremely difficult.
• To withdraw any additional impact we as a team, either via illness or injury, may put on national and international health systems and hospitals.
Whilst we have put in all the preparations and are eager to race, as an organisation we believe this is the best way to ensure we adhere to our duty of care to riders and staff, before returning to business as usual as soon as possible.
