Bernal will compete again almost a year after his last test. Photo MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP
Seven months after the serious accident suffered during training and which caused fractures to a femur, a kneecap and several vertebrae, the Colombian Egan Bernal, winner of the Tour de France 2019, will return to compete this Tuesday, at the start of the return to Denmark.
“After a final evaluation over the weekend, the medical team cleared him to return to competitions,” he said in a statement. Ineos GrenadiersBritish formation in which he ran for four seasons.
Sometime later, Bernal himself shared the good news with his followers. “The hard part was not bumping into a bus at more than 60km / h, the hard part was getting up, accepting what happened, starting from scratch and coming back with my head held high. Tomorrow I will race again after 1 year”, he wrote on his Twitter account. And, with humor, he added: “Yerba mala never dies”.
In 2021 Bernal, winner of the Tour of Italy that year, he finished sixth in the Return to Spain, which took place from August 14 to September 5. That would be his last competition so far.
It is that on January 24 the Colombian collided with a bus while training on the routes of his country. The accident occurred on the starting road Bogota to the city of Gachancipa, in Cundinamarca (central Colombia), when the bus stopped abruptly to drop a passenger. According to the police report, the cyclist, “who was traveling in the same direction and in the same lane, did not observe the maneuver performed by the vehicle and collided with the rear of it”.
Bernal, who has undergone surgery multiple times to correct the multiple fractures he suffered, said he “had a 95% chance of becoming paraplegic and nearly losing his life.”
Bernal said he “had a 95% chance of becoming paraplegic and almost losing his life.” Photo EFE / Team Egan Bernal
“After what happened to me in January, this is the moment I’ve been waiting for, to race with my teammates again,” he said in the statement.
“I can’t stress enough how difficult the past eight months have been for me, both physically and mentally. That day and my journey ever since will be a part of me forever, it’s something I will never forget,” said the first Colombian to win the Tour de France.
Without his terrible accident, Bernal would have competed this year in “Big Boucle”after an impasse in 2021 in which he concentrated on the Giro to regain the confidence lost after the 2020 edition of the French test, in which he said goodbye through the back door, with an abandonment three days after the great failure at the top Great Colombian.
The challenge that now awaits us is immense compared to other similar cases. The British Christopher Froome never recovered the level that allowed him to win four laps, after a hard fall with similar consequences (fractures of the femur, elbow, hip, vertebra) during the reconnaissance of a time trial in the dolphin of 2019.
Froome was ten years older than Bernal when the accident occurred. Despite this, the five stages of the Tour of Denmark (which starts on Tuesday and ends on Sunday) are quite flat and will only be a first stop for Bernal.
In recent months, the Colombian cycling prodigy has shared images of his recovery on social media. On February 10, for example, she posted a video of his “first steps”. In early March he was shown training for the first time on an exercise bike and at the end of that month he said that “after 2 months and 20 broken bones” he was back on road cycling. And on June 8, he completed his first sprint.
“Sometimes sacrifices have to be made in this life. Tomorrow I was traveling to Colombia to visit my mother who has cancer. She is the most important person to me, but I have decided to stay and do a Training Camp with my team. Andorra thinking about the next goals. It’s not over, “he wrote in early July, clarifying his commitment to return as soon as possible.
This Tuesday, finally, the wait will be over. His return to competition has been described as the “most awaited news” by the local sports network antenna 2. Y Timethe main newspaper in Colombia, entitled “The novel is finished”, entitled
Bernal’s presence at the Tour of Denmark is due to the absence of his teammate, the Costa Rican Andrea Amadorthe organization specified.
The 25-year-old climber is one of the main attractions of this 31st edition of the Danish test, in which the great absentee will be the local hero and winner of the Tour de France 2022, jonas vingegaard.
Two companions of Bernal, the Pole Michal Kwiatkowskiworld champion in 2014, and the British Geraint Thomaswinner of the Tour de France 2018 are among the favorites of the competition along with the Dutchman Tom Dumoulin and the French Christophe Laporteboth from the team Jumbo Visma.
The race will start on Tuesday in the municipality of Allerød, north of Copenhagen, with five stages crossing the country. The 147 riders will cover 767.3 kilometers before arriving in Vejle (west) where the successor of the Belgian Remco Evenepoel will be crowned, after having overcome the toughest climb of the race in the fifth and final stage, with an average gradient of 16.3 % and a maximum of 21%.
The third stage between Otterup and Herning should be the decisive one of the competition, with its 239.3 kilometers, 18.2 of which on gravel.
The challenge will be great, but for Egan Bernal the fact of starting the tests is already a victory, which eight months ago seemed impossible.
With information from AFP
Source: Clarin
