Rielley Duckworth
(Photo: Getty Images)
Colombian cyclist Egan Bernal has tested positive for COVID-19, according to a statement by his personal press team.
Bernal, fresh from a stunning victory in the Giro d’Italia, was preparing to return home to Colombia when a PCR test revealed that he had contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As a result, his trip home and planned public events have been postponed as he and his partner Maria Fernanda Gutiérrez remain in isolation in Monaco.
In Bernal’s hometown of Zipaquirá, where a homecoming event had been planned for Monday to welcome him back to the country, citizens and officials alike expressed concern and wished him a swift recovery. In a Facebook video filmed near the entrance of the city’s famed Salt Cathedral, Mayor Wilson García offered a message of support:
“We would like to inform the public that from the city of Zipaquirá we are sending our best energy and all our support to our champion Egan Bernal for his quick recovery, that he may soon be in this land having overcome COVID-19, that, from this, the first wonder of the country, the Salt Cathedral, there can be the reception he deserves. Get well soon, our dear champion.”