‘The whole situation was really tough on me’: Giro d’Italia stage winner lifts the lid on his battle with Lyme disease

A Giro d’Italia stage winner and, at 23, with a whole heap of potential ahead of him, EF Education-EasyPost rider Georg Steinhauser was at a loss. Training on the bike had become like riding through treacle and, now, he had spent three full days sitting in his apartment feeling down, seeing no one and “without even opening a single window”. Something had to change.

To a casual onlooker, it might have appeared that Steinhauser was suffering from a depressive episode. But, as he found out after a series of tests, his low mood was actually a symptom of Lyme disease and caused by a tick bite.