This article was first published by聽.
罢丑颈蝉听Tour de France has been raced with the menacing threat of COVID-19 hanging over it. There were late substitutions right up until the Grand D茅part in Copenhagen, and in the weeks since 13 riders have tested positive for the virus, including ,听, and聽.
One of those riders was Danish rider Magnus Cort of American team EF Education-EasyPost, one of the key animators of the early stages of the race. Cort was clearly on good form coming into the Tour de France. He attacked into breakaways for more than 300 miles in the early stages, wore the KOM jersey for most of the first week, and then won stage ten.
Then, Cort started deteriorating.
A surprisingly complete picture of Cort鈥檚 changing condition exists, both from his reported impressions in a he wrote for Danish news site BT.DK, and in the form of data released from his Whoop fitness tracker.
颁辞谤迟听 that 鈥渟ince Wednesday, I have had discomfort in my body,鈥 but at that point had recorded negative results on multiple COVID tests. He wrote that he felt 鈥渓ethargic,鈥 with several other symptoms. 鈥淚t has not been a fever, but it is as if many of the symptoms have overlapped the fatigue, so I cannot completely separate things,鈥 he explained. Cort had also been struggling to get to sleep, despite his fatigue. We already know that , Cort was up late, but celebration one night turned to sleeplessness thereafter. 鈥淔atigue has set in in my head,鈥 Cort wrote.聽鈥淚 feel used.聽It is hard mentally to ride such a long bike race.聽Especially in this insane heat.鈥
On Sunday morning, Cort had the answer as to why he had been feeling so unwell,听聽after five days of symptoms. 鈥淢agnus Cort woke up this morning with a headache and fever and has since tested positive for COVID-19. He will not start stage 15 of the Tour de France. His medical evaluation is ongoing,鈥 his team said on its social media.
On Monday, the exercise tracking company Whoop鈥攁 sponsor of EF Education-EasyPost鈥攕hared physiological data that supported Cort鈥檚 observed impressions.
The surprising metric is Cort鈥檚 recovery score, and how quickly he bounced back from one day to the next prior to contracting the virus. For the first 16 days of the race, Cort鈥檚 recovery averaged 57 percent from one day to the next. On the day of his COVID-19 positive, that dropped dramatically, to 19 percent.
His respiratory rate jumped up significantly, too, from 14.5 average breaths per minute, to 16.5.
Cort鈥檚 resting heart rate showed an even more dramatic spike. Over the five days leading up to the COVID positive, his resting heart rate slowly increased from 37 bpm, before spiking up to 47 bpm on the morning of his withdrawal from the race.
His also plummeted. This measure of the interaction between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, measured in milliseconds, is, Whoop says, an important indicator of a body鈥檚 health. A low measure indicates that 鈥測our body is working hard for some other reason (maybe you鈥檙e fatigued, dehydrated, stressed, or sick and need to recover), which leaves fewer resources available to dedicate towards exercising [or] competing.鈥 On stage 11, Cort鈥檚 range was 99 ms. By stage 14, as his body fought the burgeoning infection, it dropped to 87 ms. On stage 15, when he tested positive, it plunged to 61 ms.
The final metric shared by Whoop was related to his fever symptoms. Cort鈥檚 skin temperature was, Whoop notes, 鈥! very elevated鈥, increasing by 2.0掳 C.
The Tour de France had its final rest day on Monday, in the baking heat of Carcassonne, where the remaining riders of the race will be resting in preparation for three days in the Pyrenees, a sprint stage, a time trial, and finally a celebratory spin down the Champs-脡lys茅es.
By that point, hopefully, Magnus Cort and the other unlucky COVID-positive members of the peloton are feeling much better.