“I am very enthusiastic about the idea of being able to relive every kilometer of the Tour after having overcome the greatest test of my life”, confides the Colombian Egan Bernal (here, August 17, 2022, during the Tour of Denmark). BO AMSTRUP/AFP
Victim of a serious accident during a training outing in January 2022, the Colombian rider, winner of the Great Loop in 2019, will be on the starting line on Saturday in Bilbao, with forty-eight days of racing since his fall.
Heir to Lucho Herrera, Fabio Parra or Nairo Quintana, Egan Bernal, first Colombian winner of the Tour de France in 2019, seemed, at 22 (the youngest winner since François Faber in 1909), promised to collect titles and records with his team, Ineos. But, injured and forced to retire from the Grande Boucle in 2020, absent in 2021 (he had favored the Tour of Italy that he won), the climber then saw his trajectory break during a training outing, in January 2022, when he violently collided with a stationary bus.
Raised with chest trauma, fractures of the femur and patella, the Colombian was also hit in the spine. “On the ground, I couldn’t breathe. I was about to p out, when I managed to catch some air. I looked up and saw the back of the bus. The mechanic escorting me immediately called the team doctor. He arrived very quickly: thanks to him, I am alive. The femur…