Egan Bernal (Ineos) has a good chance of continuing to have a very good season in the international group. Since yesterday he has been pedaling in the Tour de France, a race he won in 2019 and in which he is taking part for the fifth time.
According to the criteria of
This time, the objectives are very clear: Bernal must first help his teammate. Carlos Rodriguez to fight for a place among the top five in the general classification, and if you go a little further, for the podium.
Is a reality
The Spanish Rodríguez was fifth last year, so this time Ineos’s bet is to surpass that position, but they have as a second card the Colombian, who this year has made very good classifications.
Egan Bernal has competed in nine races in 2024 and in seven of them he has finished in the top 10. And if you look at those statistics closely, you find that he has managed to finish on the podium on three occasions: in the road race of the national cycling championships, The Great Road and Return to Catalonia, the latter from the World Tour.
In the top category of cycling today, Bernal has had very good performances. We already mentioned what he did in Catalonia, but he was also seventh in Paris Nice, tenth in the Tour of Romandie and fourth in the Tour of Switzerland.
The Tour is a prize he won on the road, but it is true that he can aspire to be in the top 10 of the competition. He already knows it, he won it in 2019, he has acted as a domestique, a leader and he has taken things calmly when he returned, after the accident, in the 2023 Tour.
What it has in its favor
Bernal and Ineos have something in their favour: they do not have a great responsibility in the competition. That pressure to liven up the race, to go and win it, is on the riders ofl Visma, from UAE Emirates and Bora, that have Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic like the riders ready to go for the Tour title.
The race will have two time trial stages, one of 25 km on Friday and the second, of 37 km, on the final day in Nice. In addition, there will be four mountaintop finishes and two flat ones, a route that suits Bernal well.
“I’ve seen him doing well. Last year he struggled and we’ve already seen Egan in good form, he’s not the one who won the Tour or the Giro, but he’s on the right path,” he told TIME Stefano Garzelli, champion of the 2000 Giro d’Italia.
The cyclist of Zipaquirá, Cundinamarca, was selected by Colombia for the road test of the Paris Olympic Games, But hours before the start of the Tour he himself declared that he would not go.
Ineos and Bernal reached an agreement and will not go to Paris because their work plan includes the Back to Spaina competition he wants to go to “yes or yes”, as he said. Egan has already won the Tour and the Giro d’Italia in 2021 and would still need to obtain the Vuelta title, for which he will fight in the next edition from August 17 to September 8.
“The one who has to go for the general classification is Egan. Rodríguez was fifth and can go with him. They will focus everything on the Spanish, but the Colombian has something to respond with,” commented the Italian Alessandro Petacchi.
Bernal began his participation in the Tour de France in 2018, when he was 18. In 2019 he was the champion and in 2020 he retired due to back problems. In 2023 he finished 36th, after recovering from his accident.
The 27-year-old Colombian will have a difficult Tour due to the tasks he has to do, but he will race with his head thinking about the Vuelta. The consistency that he has maintained in 2024 is exciting and the ‘Top’ 10 looks real, although for that you have to pedal and overcome day-to-day life in the best competition on the planet.
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