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Tour de France winner-in-waiting Egan Bernal: "This is the triumph of a whole country"; full reaction including from second place Geraint Thomas + video highlights

Team Ineos set to win race for seventh time in eight years, Colombia to get its first champion

Egan Bernal will tomorrow become the first Colombian to win the Tour de France - and, following an edition of the race that celebrates the centenary of the yellow jersey, will at 22 years of age, become the second youngest man ever to win the maillot jaune and the fourth youngest overall winner in the race's 116-year history.

For the second successive day, extreme weather rendered parts of the route too dangerous to ride, and organisers decided to shorten the stage to just 59 kilometres from Albertville to Val Thorens.

The stage win went to Vincenzo Nibali of Bahrain-Merida, a member of the day's break, with Movistar's  Alejandro Valverde and Mikel Landa attacking late from the overall contenders' group to finish second and third.

Immediately behind them, Bernal and defending champion Geraint Thomas crossed the line together as the Team Ineos pair rode into the top two places on the General Classification, with Deceunick-Quick Step's Julian Alaphilippe, who lost the yellow jersey yesterday, dropped earlier on the climb.

Yesterday evening, following a chaotic Stage 19 in which a mudslide and hailstorm led organisers to quite rightly decide to take the overall timings from the top of the day’s penultimate climb, the Col de l’Iseran, they announced the shortening of today’s stage.

At lunchtime, a thunderstorm at the finish led to fears that the entire stage might have to be abandoned on safety grounds, but it proceeded on the truncated parcours, organisers keeping a close eye on the weather.

The planned climbs of the Cormet de Roseland and Cote de Longfoy were skipped, with the stage reduced from 130 to 59 kilometres as the riders headed along the main road through the valley to Moutier to begin the 33.4 kilometre final climb to Val Thorens.

A breakaway group of almost 30 riders formed early on but they were picked off one by one as Team Ineos and Jumbo-Visma – whose Steven Kruijswijk is now in the third podium place – forced the pace at the front of the peloton.

Emanuel Buchmann of Bora-Hangrohe moved to fourth overall while Alaphilippe, despite being dropped again, completed the top five, a result few would have predicted when the race started in Brussels three weeks ago.

Only Nibali – the sole rider to have broken the Team Sky and now Team Ineos run of overall champions since Sir Bradley Wiggins won in 2012 – managed to stay ahead of the GC group as he took the sixth Tour de France stage victory of his career.

Besides the maillot jaune, Bernal also clinches the best young rider’s white jersey, and had he finished in the top three today, would also have added the mountains classification.

Instead, the polka dot jersey remains on the shoulders of AG2R La Mondiale’s Romain Bardet – a small crumb of comfort for the home nation, which with Alaphilipppe in yellow and Groupama-FDJ’s Thibaut Pinot the favourite for the overall just 48 hours earlier, had seen dreams dashed of a first French winner since Bernard Hinault in 1985.

Irrespective of the result of the expected sprint finish in Paris tomorrow evening, the lead of Peter Sagan of Bora-Hansgrohe in the points competition is unassailable as he heads for a record seventh green jersey.

Tour de France champion-in-waiting, Egan Bernal

We’re now close to making it official. There’s one stage left, but normally if everything goes well, I can say that I’ve won my first Tour.

The last climb has been very hard. Jumbo-Visma rode hard to make the podium. We were in a comfortable situation and I felt really well. I’m happy.

It’s incredible to think that I have won my first Tour. I just want to get to the finish line in Paris tomorrow and after I’ll be calmer.

Colombia is on the verge of winning its first Tour – I feel this is not only my triumph but the triumph of a whole country.

We already had the Giro, La Vuelta, but the Tour was missing and it’s a great honour to think that I’m the one achieving this. My dad couldn’t talk at first but when he managed, he congratulated me. He was about to cry. For us, it’s a dream.

We used to watch the Tour on TV and we thought it was something unreachable. As a kid, you think “how cool it would be to be there one day”, but it looked so far away. Here we are and I’m very emotional.

Outgoing champion Geraint Thomas, now second overall

To get first and second doesn’t get any better. The fact that Egan is one step above me, he’s the best person to have in front of me.

 Obviously it’s been a crazy year for me and I can be happy and proud that I’ve given everything to be in my best shape here and I think we rode really well as a team from day one.

It’s been amazing. I think that we’ve proved time and time again that we’re a strong unit and we know how to ride hard and perform in this race. It’s a pleasure to be a part of.

Team principal of Team Ineos, Sir Dave Brailsford

It’s the most exciting Tour de France that we’ve taken part in and credit to Julian Alaphilippe as he died for that jersey every stage and he made a lot of people second guess what they thought they knew, and I think Pinot did the same in the Pyrenees. He was aggressive, he was brave and he took the race to us.

 We knew we had a group of older guys who were performing well, but we looked very hard to find the new generation and we decided that it was going to be Egan. We fought pretty hard to get him and he developed fantastically well.

The advice that G has given [Egan], he knows what he’s doing, he’s generous with his advice and a generous person in that regard and in the end it was all about the team winning.

 A lot of people may have questioned having two leaders, were we hedging our bets and whether it was going to work. It’s worked to perfection and you can’t get better than second and first.

Romain Bardet, mountains classification winner

The polka dot jersey made me dream when I was a kid. In 2015, I missed out on the last mountain stage.

It’s a nice satisfaction for me this time. It’s going to be my fifth time on stage on the Champs-Elysées for different awards in seven participations.

It’s good to reinvent oneself. Things haven’t gone according to my expectations at this Tour but I’ll enjoy this trophy before thinking about what has not worked.

We’re allowed to fail but we’re not allowed to not try and give it all.

Stage winner Vincenzo Nibali

It’s been a feeling of liberation when I crossed the line because the last few hundred meters felt like never ending. My only way to make it was to attack from far out. With the advantage we had at the bottom of the climb, I believed I could make it. I hadn’t won since last year. It’s a nice revenge.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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6 comments

Avatar
srchar | 5 years ago
1 like

“Inarse"? How old are you, 12?

Avatar
Rick_Rude | 5 years ago
4 likes

Got to feel for JA. The end result didn't really tell the whole story but I guess the cruelness of the grand tours is what the winning so great. 

Don't see why people hate Brailsford's team so much, other teams could learn a thing from them in securing sponsorship and running tight ships. The sport deserves more sponsor money than most teams seem able to pull in. 

Avatar
Xena replied to Rick_Rude | 5 years ago
1 like

Rick_Rude wrote:

Got to feel for JA. The end result didn't really tell the whole story but I guess the cruelness of the grand tours is what the winning so great. 

Don't see why people hate Brailsford's team so much, other teams could learn a thing from them in securing sponsorship and running tight ships. The sport deserves more sponsor money than most teams seem able to pull in. 

yeah great ,let’s get ( inarse) more money and let’s make sure that all that money stays with us and all those little  teams and I mean right down to  national level who do a lot of it for love get no fucking help . When do sky ever sponsore or fund another team , fucking never . 

Bring money in ,yes , spread  it about , give the smaller teams some of the wealth .  

Take a look at sport now ,look who wins . The ones with the most money that’s who .  Do you think Lewis Hamilton would win driving around in the same car as the guy at the back of the grid ,of course he wouldn’t.  Sky ,Inarse have done nothing for cycling except for themselves . They have however lied and lied , lost computers , have strange packages delivered to a rider on a private plane . Have testosterone delivered to their HQ . Have  had on board  a team of staff who worked for   Known doped up to the eyeball teams including hiring Top doping DR  ,Dr Leinders and say then saying we didn’t check is CV ....oh and don’t forget they take riders like Froome who Couldnt get a result if he tried all of a sudden turn into a GT winner ....and another WIggo who could not win a TT in a road race for years , always getting slaughtered by FB and co all of a sudden winning TT in some cases by minutes , and let’s not forget the early years were they had 5 or 6 riders getting to the tops of the last climbs dropping some of the best climbers in the world .  I don’t have a issue with doping , I have a issue with the amount of shit this team get away with like Porte saying he should have not posted his time up the madone  , it was quicker that a doped up to the  eyeballs Armstrong, and Froomes time also beat Armstrong. But they never been caught so that’s proves their clean . Armstrong was never caught and so were all those that confessed to doping because they would have went to prison for perjury ...wake the fuck up.

Avatar
mike the bike replied to Xena | 5 years ago
2 likes

Xena wrote:

Rick_Rude wrote:

Got to feel for JA. The end result didn't really tell the whole story but I guess the cruelness of the grand tours is what the winning so great. 

Don't see why people hate Brailsford's team so much, other teams could learn a thing from them in securing sponsorship and running tight ships. The sport deserves more sponsor money than most teams seem able to pull in. 

...oh and don’t forget they take riders like Froome who Couldnt get a result if he tried all of a sudden turn into a GT winner ....

 

A couple of points here if I may sir.  

You say that Sky took Froome and somehow transformed him.  Surely, that's what teams are supposed to do, isn't it?  It's a process that's been repeated a thousand times with more riders than I can remember.  And I can remember a lot, going back to Merckx and before.

And to say that Froome was unpromising before Sky is verging on the ridiculous.  Despite his unconventional start in the sport he was a stage winner in the Tour of Japan way back in 07 and came a close 2nd in the Worlds ITT the same year.  A year later he was riding for underdogs Barloworld and came a creditable 32nd in the Giro.

I say credit to Sky for spotting potential before it became too expensive to hire.

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
4 likes

well done to Thomas, undertands what TEAM means, even if he did have the legs to attack he played it beautifully throughout, that supposed attack on Bernal on the Galibier was anything but, it was an attack on JA and his rivals. It meant JA had to chase Thomas and the other front runners on the decent pushing to the max and when it came to it couldn't get much if any time back on Bernal who isn't as good/powerful on the lesser downward slopes as JA.

IF Thomas hadn't have attacked JA would have wheelsucked all the way to the top of the Galib and likely took off over the top having not being flogged and gained a decent chunk back IMHO. 

People who think that Thomas attacked and it didn't help Ineos/Bernal know nothing about racing tactics and that includes some of those that have been in the sport or reporting on it or years. He played a striahgt bat thrughout and did not attack his team mate for his own personal gain unlike a certain Chris Froome.

Well done to all, it was a great TdF and Team Ineos made it even more exciting.

Avatar
handlebarcam | 5 years ago
6 likes

Chapeau to Egan Bernal, a talented cyclist, especially in the high mountains. Unfortunate that he rides for Ineos, as I would've preferred another team to win. Lots of ludicrous comments on the Interwebs, about ASO not having commandeered half the roads in the Alps in order to devise an alternate multi-mountain route at half a day's notice, presumably all posted by people who've never organized so much as a Thursday night 10-mile club time trial.

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