Egan Bernal during the ninth stage of the Tour de France, between Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat (Haute-Vienne) and the puy de Dôme, July 9, 2023. DANIEL COLE / AP
To see him with a closed face, staggering on his bike, it’s hard to imagine that Egan Bernal was, in the not so distant past, designated as the one who could come and play the spoilsports on the Tour de France in the duel between the Dane Jonas Vingegaard, the outgoing winner, Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, yellow jersey in Paris in 2020 and 2021.
Before the start of the 110th edition of the event, on July 1, in Bilbao (Spain), the rider of the British team Ineos Grenadiers had himself expressed very cautious ambitions for this Grande Boucle: “don’t waste time during the first week” and, above all, to complete the first Grand Tour he has contested since the accident which almost cost him his life on January 24, 2022.
The Colombian has already given up on one of them. On July 10, when the peloton was enjoying a rest day in the Massif Central after nine grueling stages, it was already thirty-four minutes and thirty-two seconds behind the yellow jersey, Vingegaard. Tuesday, July 18, at the time of competing in the individual time trial, he is now at one hour thirty-six minutes and thirty-six seconds from the Dane of the Jumbo-Visma.
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“I try to be positive, explained the person concerned at a press conference, before the start of the Tour. I would like to find the level I had before, to measure myself against the best. That’s why I’m still in cycling. I wake up every day with this goal in mind! »
In 2019, Egan Bernal became, at 22, the youngest rider to win the event for a hundred and ten years. Some then promised him a destiny as a great champion. The Colombian would be the new spearhead of Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers), a winning machine that had crushed the Tour since 2012, winning all editions of the race except that of 2014. Its outbreak coincided with the start of the decline of the leader of the team, the Briton Chris Froome, four times yellow jersey in Paris (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017).
A retirement in 2020, a Giro the following year
The following year, however, he did not even see the Champs-Elysées, giving up before the start of the 17th stage, between Grenoble and the Col de la Loze (Isère). Blame it on recurring back problems. And also to the emergence of the Jumbo-Visma formation, determined to dispute with its team the status of metronome of the peloton. Finally, at the entry on the scene of a prodigy hitherto unknown to the general public: Tadej Pogacar.
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The context is particular: health crisis obliges, the Grande Boucle is played in September, and the preparation of the runners has been turned upside down by the confinement. Nothing, therefore, to question the status of Bernal. Especially since the following year he finished the Tour of Italy with the pink sweaterthe pink jersey of the overall winner.
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