Riders coming into Paris.
(CNN)It's set to be a Tour de France like no other.
Watched on television by millions across the world, the annual race is deeply embedded in French culture as it weaves its way across stunning countryside and vertiginous mountains, as well as through picturesque towns and cities before concluding on Paris' Champs-Elysées.
The Tour is normally held during July, but the global pandemic put paid to that idea, hence the August 29 start. The pandemic and a recent spike in new infections in France has also left organizers with a real logistical challenge in how best to stage the 23-day race.
Adding to organizers' worries, the Alpes-Maritimes region -- the site of the opening stages of the race -- has been declared a red zone because of a recent rise in Covid-19 cases.
In red zones, the authorities are able to make masks compulsory outdoors and close bar. But with the French government ready for worse case scenarios with plans for local or national lockdown in place, questions are being asked as to whether the Tour will even reach Paris.
"The Tour de France will not stop if there's a positive case, even if nobody knows whether it will be completed or not," International Cycling Union (UCI) president David Lappartient told Reuters.
To ensure the race is completed, teams will be expelled from the 2020 event if at least two riders or members of staff show strong symptoms or test positive for Covid-19.
Documents obtained by cycling website VeloNews -- which were confirmed to CNN as accurate by race organizer Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) -- state that team members will have to pass two coronavirus tests before being able enter the Tour's mandatory "bubble" three days before Saturday's start in Nice.
"If two persons or more from the same team present strongly suspect symptoms or have tested positive for Covid-19, the team in question will be expelled from the Tour de France," the document reads.
"Its riders will not be authorized to start the Tour de France (or the next stage) and the team's personnel will have their accreditation withdrawn."
All team members will again be tested on both of the Tour's rest days -- September 7 and 14 -- but team doctors and race medical staff will also decide whether or not a rider showing milder symptoms can participate in a stage.
There will also be a mobile Covid-19 facility at every stage to perform any additional testing if needed. The testing process has been an expensive ones for the teams -- Groupama-FDJ doctor Jacky Maillot told Reuters it has cost the team $154,000 (€130,000) for the season.
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