Already, Friday, in the Puy Mary, Egan Bernal had left feathers in the battle. But that day, while in front, the two Slovenes had already walked, the 23-year-old Colombian had conceded only 38 seconds, limiting the damage and keeping his place on the podium.
This Sunday, in the heat of the Ain, in this triple ascent of the same mountain without any charm because deprived of public, the climber of Ineos experienced his biggest failure in his career. The first, moreover, in mondiovision. On arrival, looking resigned rather than downcast, Egan Bernal finished 7’20 ” behind the Slovenian magicians, dropping him to 13th place overall, 8’25 ” behind Roglic.
His nightmare began very early in these postcard laces of this terrible “Pyramid of Bugey”. At 13 kilometers from the finish, Egan Bernal therefore let go of the ground, then sank into the pines, in the shadow of the forest as if he had become the shadow of the runner he was the year past.
“Today, I have lost three years of my life”
His teammates waited for him, Castroviejo and then Kwiatkowski, they wore it as best they could, but their leader hadn’t been for a long time. Full of humiliation, he crossed the line with Wout Van Aert, his executioner, Roglic’s lieutenant, the man who had made him waltz from the platoon, puncher without being a priori a climber yet. And Pierre Rolland, incidentally, who had done the whole step in front of…
“I think I lost about three years of my life on the stage, said the winner of the 2019 Tour. You have to accept when others are stronger. I just couldn’t follow them… ”
The climber prodigy from Colombia was to be Roglic’s most dangerous rival on this Tour. His victory on the Route d’Occitanie at the beginning of August seemed to have reassured him. But the sequel, already, suggested that the beautiful mechanics of Egan Bernal no longer turned so smooth. Beaten on the Tour de l’Ain by the Slovenian Jumbo, still dominated by the Dauphiné whom he ended up abandoning for so-called back pain, the Colombian arrived expectantly.
This day without Egan Bernal is, basically, only the extension of the complicated Tour of his team. Ineos first experienced the misadventure of the fall of Pavel Sivakov from the first stage in Nice. The Franco-Russian, one of the precious relays in the mountains, still does not seem to have recovered from his problems. Individually, several of the team’s other riders disappoint, too. Before, it was always flawless in terms of form. Froome and Thomas, not selected because they were too fair, were ultimately not the only ones …
They miss Nicolas Portal
Collectively, then, the tactics of the British formation did not always appear imperial. She took the race on her own without attacking the key, so she played the Jumbo-Visma game sometimes… In fact, she wanted to imitate her rival by doing exactly like her, applying her old methods of the Wiggins-Froome years -Thomas-Bernal, but without any weight this time. She did not know how to reinvent herself.
Tactically, therefore, one of his strengths in the last few summers, Ineos has seemed next. On this point, the loss of Nicolas Portal, sports director of the team, who died this winter of a heart attack at the age of 40, thinking head of the team in addition to being very close humanly to these men, makes them very wrong. Without him, Ineos and Egan Bernal seem orphans.
What will be the third week of the Colombian? For two years, this was his strong point, and his plan was to accelerate on Tuesday or Wednesday.
He is now out of the game for the double and he will have to set a new goal. Yesterday on arrival, he was unable to project himself …
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