The Lotto Soudal team will divide athlete registration into three groups to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection when racing resumes this summer.

In this initiative, which team doctors call the "bubble system," the three groups, which include athletes and support staff, will operate independently of one another.

The roster will be split along three Grand Tours, with one group being the Tour de France, another the Giro d'Italia, and the third the Vuelta a España team. The rest of the 2020 calendar will be split accordingly, with athletes training and racing exclusively in their respective groups.

"Within the team, we started thinking very quickly about how to get back to racing as safely as possible," team doctor Jens Decker told Sporza. So we created a sort of 'bubble system' for the 28 riders."

"We had to make sure that the riders were able to return to the race as quickly as possible," he said.

"There are three bubbles, with three gruntools as a starting point. These bubbles are actually a series of different races on the cycling calendar and we will keep the same staff and the same riders for the next few months. The riders will also have to share hotel rooms with the same people at all times."

Rotation between bubbles will be kept to a minimum, but it may not be possible to keep them completely separate for the rest of the year.

"We certainly have to be flexible for the players. If someone leaves the bubble and has to enter a new bubble, the whole test protocol will precede them," said Dedeker.

"We also need to check testing capacity. Depending on the country we are in, we have to adapt as well. The final decision always lies with the local authorities."

The initiative follows Lotto Soudal's introduction of a robust testing strategy for athletes after he was tested for COVID-19 antibodies. Vincenzo Nibali will participate in a program based almost exclusively in Italy in order to limit his mobility.

"On paper, it looks very good at this point, and it seems feasible because we have enough staff," de Decker said of the so-called bubble system.

"In any case, I think this is the best way to make the race as safe as possible."