EGAN BERNAL HAS withdrawn from the Tour de France five days short of Paris after injury wrecked his title defence.
The 23-year-old Colombian had remained in contention until Sunday’s stage on the Grand Colombier, when he shipped more than seven minutes on the unforgiving gradients to tumble out of the top 10 in the general classification.
After Monday’s rest day, Bernal suffered again on Tuesday’s stage to Villard-de-Lans, though indicated afterwards he hoped to ride to Paris out of respect for the race.
But on the morning of Wednesday’s queen stage to the Col de la Loze above Meribel, the Ineos Grenadiers announced Bernal was out of the race.
“This is obviously not how I wanted my Tour de France to end, but I agree that it is the right decision for me in the circumstances,” Bernal said. “I have the greatest respect for this race and I am already looking forward to coming back in the years ahead.”
Bernal began the Tour still suffering with a back injury that forced him to withdraw from the Criterium du Dauphine last month, but had played down the problem until his collapse.
After Tuesday’s stage, he told reporters the pain had spread to his knee and it seemed clear there was little point in him continuing.
Ineos said Bernal will now have a period of recovery before resetting his goals for the rest of the season.
There has been speculation he could now target the Vuelta a Espana, which is due to be Chris Froome’s last race for the team before he joins Israel Start-Up Nation next summer. The Vuelta is scheduled to begin on 20 October.
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Have to question Geraint Thomas’ omission?
@Ardmore02: Thomas was undercooked. Wasn’t training well and therefore wasn’t picked, so was put on a different schedule. Riding the Vuelta. Froome to ride the Giro. Maximising the teams GC contenders. Round 1 obviously failed.
@Jonathan Nolan: Thomas will ride the Giro, Froome the Vuelta.
@The Sports Derd: or what I heard, but they could have changed it since July. The answer to your question regarding Thomas remains. Didn’t train well in the lead up to the Tour
@Jonathan Nolan: … Ardmore02’s question that is
@Jonathan Nolan: Froome is riding vuelta not giro.
Disagree with him being undercooked as he had a very good Tirreno last week. Thomas could easily have done tour and vuelta this year as will alot of riders. To me there is more to it but if there isn’t, yeah Brailsford gamble backfired.
@Ardmore02: you got to remember, teams were picked for the Tour based on training at the time. This was back in May, prior to the tour being moved to September. (Originally to start first week of July as per normal). At the time I saw an interview with Brailsford saying Thomas wasn’t ready. Froome was still recovering from his operation, so was never going to ride the Tour. Then when the Tour was moved, they had already started the training schedule, hence Thomas rode a 1 week race (Tirreno) as a lead up to what is now the Giro for him to ride.
He may have looked good at Tirreno, but with the training schedule in his legs to peak at a specific time, the question would be, would he have been competitive in a 3 week grand tour now V’s in a few weeks time?
@Ardmore02: 37th overall in the Dauphiné, pretty hard to disagree with his omission. Sure, it looks like he’s come on a long way since then with the Tirreno 2nd but that was a month after the Dauphiné. If you take Bernal’s word, he’s in top form, injuries from crashes have got the better of him. G is 34 now, changing of the guard with Froome leaving and Bernal, Carapaz, A.Yates and Sivakov all going to lead their GT GC assaults.
@Jonathan Nolan: missed this earlier Jonathon. The tour was postponed last april and the roster for the tour wasnt picked till end of August so not sure what you mean about teams being picked last May. I’ll spell out what I mean. Thomas didn’t want to play domestique to Bernal which is what I was questioning. Who’s to blame? DB…
And if my theory is wrong, who’s to blame? Yep, it’s DB…
Cant wait for tonight’s stage (I’m in Australia, so it’s a 9.30pm – 2am for me) hopefully with the Madeleine in the picture, the peloton will keep cool heads and save their energy with no large breakaway at the start so Bennett can get some decent points at La Rochette before the large climbs. Iran needs to make his move on this stage if he’s in any way to contend for yellow. He seems to be nicely under the radar the whole tour so far. Not many people talking about him. He can climb, and he can TT, and he’s not that far off. Exiting tour indeed. Yellow, Polka dot and green all still up for grabs.
@Jonathan Nolan: yeah been very exciting so far. Will all come down to Sat TT. Remember Pogacar beat Rog in Slovenia national tt so will be very interesting indeed.
@Jonathan Nolan: Unless he’s had an ephipany, Uran won’t attack, he’ll ride for the third step of the podium. The way Jumbo are riding the pace will be too high to attack anyways, only hope of some mano-a-mano combat is if Dumoulin and Kuss are gone with 5k to the summit of the Loze and MAL, Yates, Porte, Landa and Uran can take it in turns to attack. As it is, Pog and Rog are a level above the rest. Hopefully the high altitude can throw a spanner in the works.
@The Sports Derd: true, but we can only hope (Uran). He’s. Or getting any younger. Now or never for a few of them. Over here all talk is the battle for fifth between Yates and Porte. You couldn’t make it up. Lol. Porte’s come off a few times but nothing major, but I’d like Yates to take 5th. I’ve been waiting for that type of attack from the different GC riders to gang up whoever is leading the tour for the past 6-7 years now. No one seemed to attack Sky or Ineos. I think the last time it happened was 2010(?) when Evans, the Schleck brothers and Contador battled it out and constantly attacked each other. I can’t see it happening this year though. Not when riders like Van Aert are the second last pacer on major climbs for Jumbo. But we can live in hope