Welcome to the GCN Racing News Show.
Coming up this week, we look back on a dramatic final week of the Tour De France and ask the
question: who, exactly, is Egan Bernal?
The final day in Paris saw the Tour De France crown its first ever South American winner
in Egan Bernal, and at 22 years of age, the Colombian’s rise to the pinnacle of the
sport has been nothing short of meteoric.
So we thought we’d rewind and find out a little more about how he got to this point.
Bernal was born on the thirteenth of January 1997 in Zipaquira Colombia, which is North
East of Bogota and importantly for a cyclist sits at an altitude of 2652m above sea level.
CyclingTips featured a great interview with him in 2016 where he gave some insight into
how he found the sport, he told Daniel Ostanek that his Dad had been a keen cyclist, but
not a pro.
At age 8 he would ride with his Dad at the weekends.
There was a race in his town and with Bernal senior not wanting him to ride, someone else
gave him a helmet.
He went on to win multiple races and his talent was visible from a young age.
His journey into pro-cycling though came via mountain biking and the talent spotter that
is Gianni Savio.
Egan represented Colombia at the world junior mountain bike championships in 2014 and 15,
taking a silver and bronze medals in that order.
He had success as a junior in his home country, but after winning the Sognando Delle Fiandre
- The dream of the Tour of Flanders race, he was introduced by his agent to Gianni Savio
who looking for a climber, signed the then 19 year old, on a four year contract.
So he skipped the U23 ranks entirely really.
I first saw him at the Giro de Trentino in 2016 where I was commentating, he climbed
with the best and ultimately took the white jersey as best young rider.
A successful season followed winning the Tour of Bihor and finishing 4th at the Tour de
L’Avenir.
I next saw him at the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia in 2017 where I got to interview
him on multiple days, unfortunately there was no Genting Highlands stage that year which
we have loved to see him in action on, and despite his best efforts he couldn’t quite
shake everyone on the less steep Cameron Highlands.
Success after success followed and two stage wins and the general classification at the
Tour de L’Avenir saw him transfer to team SKY for 2018.
He impressed in his first Tour de France working to help deliver Geraint Thomas to victory.
But 2019 is all about this humble 22 year old climbing sensation, who will become the
youngest winner of the Tour de France for 110 years.
When you look at Bernal’s stats, they’re frightening, particularly for his competitors.
He has won 3 of the 4 WorldTour stage races he’s done this year.
He has finished in the top 6 in 12 of the last 13 stages races that he’s finished,
the only blemish being last year’s Tour de France, where he was working for both Geraint
Thomas and Chris Froome.
Bernal’s victory at the Tour de France was in part down to three separate crashes.
The most serious, that of Chris Froome at the Criterium du Dauphiné, without which
it would surely have been him that entered the race as team leader.
The crash of Geraint Thomas in the early stages of the Tour de Suisse, which may have left
the Welshman a percentage or two short of top race form.
And finally, the crash of Bernal himself, back in May, without which he would have lead
Team Ineos at the Giro d’Italia, and come to the Tour a little more fatigued, if at
all.
In the Tour itself, he handled himself well in a stressful first week, including making
the front group on a pivotal day in the crosswinds on stage 10.
Despite losing ground in the time trial on stage 13, he made up for it on back to back
days in the Pyrenees.
His attack with 6km to go to the top of the Col de l’Iseran on stage 19 was a brave
move - but ultimately it was the one that won him the Tour.
With the cancellation of the stage shortly after, we’ll never know if he’d have held
on all the way to the summit finish in Tignes, but what we do know is that if Bernal had
waited until that summit finish, the situation could have panned out a lot differently for
the Colombian.
What was great to see, was how much it meant to him - this video from Eurosport shows how
emotional he was when he took the yellow jersey on stage 19, under the strangest of circumstances.
And not only will it mean a huge amount to him, it’ll also mean a huge amount to the
whole of Colombia.
Already a HUGELY passionate cycling nation, their celebrations are going to be off the
charts, and Bernal will no doubt inspire a whole new generation of future world beating
climbers.
For Team Ineos - that was the 7th Tour de France win in the last 8 years, a remarkable
feat, even when their remarkable budget is taken into account.
For the last three years, they have achieved the win with a different rider, and it’s
the 2nd time in 2 years that they’ve filled two of the three spots on the podium.
That said, this race was one of the most enthralling editions of recent times.
Had we known at the start that it would be an Ineos 1-2 in Paris, I think we’d all
have been forgiven for rolling our eyes in despair, but in reality, the way they rode,
the way that had to ride, was completely different this year.
Not only did they appear to not have the same strength in depth of the climbs as in previous
years, they also were forced to ride an attacking race.
Why, because of a Frenchman named Julian Alaphilippe.
How good was he?!!
Two stage wins, both of which were taking in his typical flamboyant style, plus 14 Days
in the yellow jersey.
Many were expecting him to crack, but the further he got into the high mountains, the
more we, and he, were wondering if he’d become the first French winner of the event
in 34 years.
In the end, it wasn’t to be, Alaphilippe did crack, at the highest point of the race
on stage 19.
He was, undoubtedly, paying for the many efforts he’d made in the first week of the race,
without which, perhaps, he’d have had that little bit of extra energy for the final few
days.
And that will lead to more speculation, from us, from his team, from himself, as to whether
he can become a Grand Tour winner in the future, if he changes the way he rides.
And to that, I would say, we don’t really want you to Julian!
In order to become a Grand Tour winner, he’d have to ride conservatively, save energy whenever
possible, play the long game, and that is about as far from his current mentality as
you could get.
Alaphilippe loves to attack, and we love to watch him attack.
He was the entertainer of this year’s Tour de France, both on and off the bike, just
as he has been in pretty much every other race in which he’s competed this year.
Do we really want him to change?
I’m not sure I do.
We’d like to know what your thoughts are on this, though - would you like to see Alaphilippe
have a proper crack at winning the Tour de France next year by preparing differently
and riding a more conservative race, or would you like to see him stay exactly like he is.
Let us know in the comment section below.
The funny thing is, that even if Alaphilippe changed his preparation next year and focussed
everything on winning the Tour de France, he may not necessarily do any better.
It’ll be very interesting to see how he plans 2020.
Another man we don’t want to change is Vincenzo Nibali, who took the final, truncated mountain
stage on the penultimate day of the race.
His 41st Grand Tour stage in the space of 78 days, according to Ammatti Pyorailly on
twitter: Brilliant to see Geraint Thomas so gracious
in ‘defeat’ to his teammate - and actually, what a performance by the Welshman given his
far from ideal lead in to the race this year.
Steven Kruijswik rounded out what has been an incredible race for Team Jumbo Visma, and
becomes the 9th Dutch rider to get on the Tour de France podium:
The big loser in the final week was poor Thibaut Pinot, who reportedly banged his leg on his
bars on stage 17, got through stage 18, but succumbed to the muscle tear the following
day.
Watching him stop at the side of the road in tears, consoled by his teammate William
Bonnet, I think left most of us in tears too.
Like Alaphilippe, Pinot animated the race this year, and gave the French, and the rest
of us, even more to cheer.
To see him have to climb into his team car like that was devastating - let’s hope he
can take all the positives from this year’s race and come back stronger than ever in 2020.
According to the Cycling Road Book on twitter, on only one other year, 1956?, has the Tour
de France podium not won a stage between them.
Although that makes the assumption that Jumbo Visma’s TTT win was not a stage win for
Steven Kruijswijk.
And even the 4th place finisher, Emmanuel Bockman didn’t win a stage.
He did, though, announce himself as a potential future Grand Tour winner.
As Dan pointed out last week, we haven’t really spoken about him enough, in fact I
don’t think we mentioned him at all in our preview, which was remiss of us, but we won’t
be making that mistake again.
Just as it’s great to see the French on the verge of winning their home Grand Tour
again, it’s also great to see Germany with a new GT contender - much of their success
since the Ullrich era has been in sprinting.
Speaking of sprinting, we must also mention Peter Sagan, who sealed the deal on a record
breaking 7th Green jersey.
The end of the road for a sponsor is never good and Roompot have announced they’re
to stop their involvement in cycling at the end of the season.
In a press release on the team website announcing the news, they’re not sounding too confident
at finding someone to replace the holiday park company, let’s hope for all the riders
and staff that they do.
Over at the Adriatica Ionica Race, Remco Evenepoel continues to impress, winning stage 3 by over
2 minutes, on his own.
He will replace current champion Victor Campenaerts in the Belgian squad for the upcoming European
Time Trial championships, Campenaerts citing fatigue from a busy early part of the season.
At 19 will we see this young rider follow a similar trajectory to our Colombian Tour
de France winner.
There was a one two three for Deceuninck Quickstep on stage 1 - which means they now have a total
of 51 wins to their name so far in 2019…..(when we recorded this)
Finally I thought we would have a little fixed gear crit action….
Fixed Gear star Alec Briggs checked in from the Eastbourne Cycling where rather impressively
the fixed gear crit was only point one of a kilometre an hour slower than the road bike
one!
40.6 to 40.5kmh!
Bonkers!
See who told you that you needed brakes and to freewheel round corners!
Alec took the victory in the men’s race while Margaux Vigie took the women’s race
in emphatic style, lapping the field.
Coming up next week, the Clasica San Sebastian, the start of the Tour of Poland and the Tour
de Wallonie... if, like me you totally suffer from post Tour blues then you can of course
binge watch our daily highlights many times over while eating ice cream and waiting for
the Vuelta to come around!
Thanks for watching keep subscribing to GCN Racing we’ve got loads of live racing and
highlights to come in August and if you want a little something a little different check
out Hank’s 1903 Tour de France stage epic with Mark Beaumont by clicking the link on
your screen now.
Have a great week bye for now.