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6th Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under - 2.3

Australia, January 20-25, 2004

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News for January 20, 2004

Bradley McGee out of JCTDU

By Karen Forman and Anthony Tan in Adelaide

After being labelled as the team to beat at yesterday's team presentation, FdJeux.com suffered a devastating blow just hours before the start of the opening stage of the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under in Adelaide's East End this evening, with Bradley McGee forced to abandon the race due to food poisoning.

A few hours after a light seafood lunch for the Centenary Tour de France prologue winner, his seven team-mates and directeur-sportif Marc Madiot, McGee was found curled up in the shower by his room-mate Baden Cooke, vomiting and as well as experiencing severe diarrhoea. "It's a big blow that Brad got sick - he had fish for lunch and a couple of hours later, I found him curled up in the shower, spewing, with diarrhoea," said Cooke. "The race doc is with him now and has advised him not to ride; it's a big blow because we were going for the overall. Marc Madiot is not a happy man and Brad is not a happy man."

Cooke, however, remains confident his FdJeux.com team still has what it takes to win the opening stage, despite the finish not being perfectly suited to his abilities: "It suits Brownie and McEwen [better] because they are quicker. For the sprint tonight, we've got Matt [Wilson], Mark [Renshaw] and Bernhard [Eisel] in front of me, so if all goes well, we'll be all right."

As for the remainder of the JCTDU, the 2003 Tour de France points jersey champion admits the absence of McGee impacts on the team considerably in their chances for overall victory. "[Speaking of the] overall, we were going to put Matt and myself up front to put pressure on the other teams with Brad as our main guy, but this [situation] has weakened our team," he said.

Update 22:40 ACDT

Although McGee is still weak after suffering from what is believed to be food poisoning from bad fish, JCTDU race doctor Peter Barnes reported that his vomiting and diarrhoea has stopped and McGee is feeling substantially better. He is expected to be almost fully recovered in 24 hours time.

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