Several cyclists, including riders due to start the Giro d\u2019Italia on Friday, fell ill after a Belgian one-day race, with cow manure on the roads suspected to be the cause.<\/p>\n
Three Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 riders suffered from abdominal pain, diarrhoea, fever and vomiting, and were briefly taken to hospital, the team said from Bulgaria, where the Giro begins on Friday.<\/p>\n
Arnaud De Lie, the winner of the Famenne Ardenne Classic on Sunday and who is expected to be the Belgian team\u2019s leader at the Giro, initially showed no symptoms before feeling nauseous during the flight to Bulgaria.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not feeling well, but his participation in the Giro is not compromised at this stage,\u201d the team said of De Lie. Only five of Lotto\u2019s eight riders were able to attend the race presentation on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
According to Belgian broadcaster Sporza, other teams such as Alpecin have also been affected, while Lotto\u2019s sporting director Maxime Bouet said: \u201cHalf the peloton is ill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lotto said the riders may have been contaminated by cow manure on the Ardennes course, with wet roads causing excrement to be splashed on to riders.<\/p>\n
Although the exact cause has not yet been confirmed, campylobacter \u2013 a type of bacteria responsible for gastrointestinal infections \u2013 is suspected to be the source.<\/p>\n
In Brussels, local authorities said vandals damaged a commemorative stone slab made in honour of Belgian cycling great Eddy Merckx. The monument depicts the face of five-time Tour de France winner Merckx, now 80 and still one of Belgium\u2019s most beloved sporting figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Wednesday morning, residents were shocked to discover that the monument in tribute to Eddy Merckx, located in Bouvreuils Square, had been vandalised,\u201d the mayor of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Beno\u00eet Cerexhe, said in a statement, adding that he was \u201coutraged\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho could want to attack an athlete, a symbol of our country? Nothing justifies such an act.\u201d<\/p>\n
An official in the mayor\u2019s office said CCTV footage in the area would be analysed to try to identify the perpetrators and the monument \u2013 inaugurated in 2019 when the Tour de France began in the city \u2013 would be repaired without delay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several cyclists, including riders due to start the Giro d\u2019Italia on Friday, fell ill after a Belgian one-day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-570027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}