tour reporter
When Egan Bernal won the Tour de France in 2019, it seemed like the beginning of a new era. After his devastating accident in January last year, he is now back at the start in France and has to deal with his own claims.
Each day around noon, before the peloton moves on to the next leg of the day, the cycling teams take turns rolling onto a stage to register for the stage. There the drivers of the respective team then line up next to each other and are introduced individually to the audience.
If that Team Ineos Grenadiers it’s your turn Egan Bernal – viewed from in front of the stage – on the far right. The captains of the respective team are usually there. “The Tour Winner of 2019”, the speakers shout. The Colombian waves, the audience cheers and applauds. That’s one of those difficult moments for Egan Bernal, 26, then Bogota in Colombia.
Devastating accident instead of a new era
It’s been four years since Bernal sat in an unadorned gymnasium Val Thorens and held a press conference as the designated tour winner. A day later he drove to Paris in the yellow jersey. Most observers were sure that they were witnessing the beginning of a new era there. Bernal – that was the unanimous opinion – will Tour de France dominate for years to come. After all, the Colombian was just 22 years old – the youngest winner since 1904.
But things turned out differently. Bernal ended the 2020 tour prematurely with knee and back problems and won the following year Giro d’Italia and decided not to appear in France. Those were the years when Tadej Pogacar celebrated his two tour victories. For 2022, Bernal was considered the first challenger for the Slovenian. Until that fatal day in January when he crashed into a stationary bus while training on a time trial bike in his home country.
Multiple broken bones and perforation of both lungs were the result – Bernal fought for his life, there was a risk of paraplegia. He has to tell the story again and again these days on the tour. He does so with a firm voice and no sign of displeasure. “My first goal was to be able to walk well again and lead a normal life”, says Bernal then. During this time, he had not thought of returning to the Tour de France at all.
Egan Bernal at the Tour de France
The leader is now a helper
But now he’s back and is introduced to the people at the start in the morning as a former tour winner. It was a risk, also for the team. “I didn’t really know what to expect, so I didn’t come with a clear idea”says Bernal. “Now I’m taking the positives out of it: that I’m recovering well, that I’m not suffering, that I can help my team-mates”he says.
Bernal as a helper for his teammates. This is the role that has now fallen to him. And of course that’s more than you could have expected immediately after the accident. But also difficult to cope with for someone whose path seemed to be different. “He knows that without the accident he would be here as our leader”says Rod Ellingworththe leader of Bernal’s team Ineos-Grenadiers. “Egan is Egan, he always has a smile on his face. He works really hard but you can just tell he wants more. It must be quite difficult for him.”
Return in the time of the child prodigies
While Bernal has been fighting to make a comeback over the past year and a half, the world of cycling has changed around him. It’s the time of the child prodigies. The tour will feature Pogacar and his adversary Jonas Vingegaard dominates. The two are clearly superior to the rest of the classification drivers.
Behind them, the mere mortals fight for third place on the podium. That also includes Tom Pidcock23, and Carlos Rodriguez, 22. Both teammates of Bernal, who can be trusted in the Tour de France in the future. Pidcock and Rodriguez are set to take another step in their development this year. The Brit is currently eighth in the overall standings, the Spaniard is currently even fourth, 1:42 minutes behind Australian Jai Hindley in third place.
Bernal puts himself at the service of the two team-mates, which is why he has been seen repeatedly at the front of the field in recent days, working in the wind for the team. In the high mountains in particular, Bernal should support his young colleagues in the coming days when the battle for the rankings in the Alps picks up speed. “He now knows where he is in the order, he now knows where he is in the hierarchy of not just our team but the rest of the peloton.”says Ellingworth.
“All he cares about is the future”
After twelve stages, a little more than halfway through the Tour de France, Bernal is 29th overall, 36:58 minutes behind the yellow jersey. But he doesn’t worry about that “because I’m not at the level I should be”. Every attack, every change of pace currently feels three times as strong for him. He’s just trying to be on a good level for himself and somehow find out “what my level could be if I was at 100 percent”.
Nobody knows whether he will ever reach this level again. The five-time tour winner Christopher Froome never recovered to form after a similar accident, but was also older than Bernal when he tried to fight back. “He’s not depressed, he thinks a lot about the future”Ellingworth says of Bernal. “That’s why he’s here, to be honest. All he cares about is the future.” Until then, he remains the tour winner of 2019 for the public.