Sports doctor stunned by Cian Uijtdebroeks fever ride at Tour: 'I nearly fell off my chair'

The 23-year-old Tour debutant admitted after Monday’s stage that he had been struggling. 

“I am not feeling well, a bit dizzy,” Uijtdebroeks said to Sporza after the stage, looking visibly pale before heading to the team bus. He also suggested he could continue despite the illness, pointing to Jonas Vingegaard having raced with Covid at the Giro.

Ahead of stage 4, Movistar sports director Jurgen Roelandts confirmed that Uijtdebroeks had suffered a difficult night with stomach complaints and diarrhoea. He described the issue as a gastrointestinal infection and said the extreme heat in the Tour peloton made the situation more complicated.

Roelandts insisted the team was monitoring the rider closely and said Uijtdebroeks would not have started with a higher temperature. “With more than 37.5 degrees, he definitely would not have started,” Roelandts said to Sporza. “Today it was 37.3. That is more feverish than fever, but it is on the limit.”

That distinction has not convinced Belgian sports doctor Tom Teulingkx, chairman of the Belgian association for sports and medical screening doctors. Speaking to Het Nieuwsblad, Teulingkx reacted with disbelief.

“I nearly fell off my chair when I heard it,” he said. “We thought riders and teams had slowly understood it by now: do not do sport with a fever. But apparently we are back to square one.”

Teulingkx was also critical of Uijtdebroeks’ own comments after the stage. “Cian is an intelligent young man, but those are very unfortunate and foolish statements,” he said, referring to the suggestion that racing with fever could be acceptable because other riders had done so before.

The doctor rejected the idea that 37.3 degrees should automatically be treated as harmless, especially in combination with clear symptoms. He said that at such a point it is reasonable to speak of mild fever, particularly when a rider is also suffering from illness, weakness and dizziness.

According to Teulingkx, the medical concern is not only whether Uijtdebroeks can survive the next few stages. The greater danger, he warned, could come later.

“Ninety percent of gastrointestinal infections are viral,” he explained. “During exercise, a lot of blood is pumped around the body, which increases the chance that the virus spreads further. And the organ where such a virus likes to settle is the heart.”

That can lead to myocarditis or scarring in the heart muscle, Teulingkx said, a risk he believes is especially relevant in endurance sports. He pointed to former cyclo cross world champion Niels Albert, whose career ended because of heart problems linked to such issues.

“If Uijtdebroeks develops heart problems in four or five years, he may think back to this,” Teulingkx warned.

For Movistar, the sporting calculation appears to be that Uijtdebroeks might recover in time for the mountain stages and perhaps still play a role later in the race, even if his general classification ambitions fade. Roelandts said the team would keep weighing the situation and continue medical checks.

Teulingkx, however, believes the decision should be far simpler. His rule is clear: a rider with fever and infection signs should be protected from himself, even in the Tour de France.

“For every day you have a fever, you should not do sport for one day,” he said. “Top athlete or not.”