Cycling news - Cofidis sports director threatens hunger strike over UAE Tour coronavirus lockdown

Damiani has been stuck on the fourth floor of the team's hotel since Thursday after the building was ordered into lockdown whilst Cofidis were competing in the UAE Tour.

Cofidis team riders Nathan Haas and Attilio Viviani have each taken to Twitter in an attempt to downplay their enforced segregation, but in a letter published by the Italian website Tutto Bici, Damiani claimed that the length of the period in which the team have been kept in isolation has "passed the limit of decency."

Damiani said that, despite his team having all been tested and returned negative results, they have been detained alongside two other teams as other hotel guests on their floor were reported to have tested positive.

He said that sharing a floor is not a risk factor relative to other guests in the hotel who may have also interacted with them.

“People believed to be suffering from the coronavirus were hospitalised and excluded," he wrote. "These were normal pathologies normally treatable.

"I want to clarify that the Cofidis team has never had any problems and that to date we are confined here only to have been housed on the fourth floor, with the other two teams, without taking into consideration that for a week at least about 500 people met and lived together for several hours a day.

“These are the material problems that are associated with the psychological management of the problem in addition to the fact that in these conditions athletes are losing all the work done so far in races and training.

“I inform you that if in the next few hours the situation is not resolved, I will start a hunger strike to defend at least the riders and the staff for whom I am directly responsible for this race.”