Remco Evenepoel and Peter Sagan both celebrate their birthdays during the Vuelta a San Juan, but those occasions seem mere statistical details compared to the landmark Egan Bernal reaches on stage 3 of this year’s race.
January 24 marks the first anniversary of the training crash that could have ended Bernal’s career and perhaps even his life.
To say the past 12 months have changed Bernal would be an understatement, and yet the Colombian has always been a thoughtful kind of a champion. A young man who confessed to an existential crisis of sorts after scaling the mountaintop of Tour de France victory in 2019 was always likely to ask himself some profound questions when he entered the depths of the valley this time last year.
“I think it was harder psychologically than physically,” Bernal told reporters in San Juan on Friday evening.
“There were some very complicated moments in the process, moments where you say to yourself, is it worth it to continue riding a bike? Will I be able to get back to the best level? Do I want to take these risks with girlfriend, my mother and my father all waiting for me? I thought about it many times.”
During those fretful days Bernal lay in intensive care, it seemed difficult to imagine how his career could possibly continue, yet before the spring was out, he was already back on his bike.
Come early summer, his Ineos Grenadiers team were gently applying the brakes on Bernal’s enthusiasm as he began to schedule plans for his return. By then, in any case, the fundamental question of whether he should go on or not had already been resolved.
“It was the best decision. I think I was born to be a bike rider. I can’t imagine my life without the bike,” Bernal said. “You can always try to make best of bad situation. I hope this can inspire people going through hard times. I think I have won the most important race of my life.”
Bernal moved swiftly through the early stages of his rehabilitation last year, consistently beating the most optimistic predictions for his physical recovery. He may have made it look almost straightforward at times, but his first training rides on the road – not to mention his return to the cut and thrust of the peloton at the Deutschland Tour – were more trying than they appeared.
“At this moment, no, I’m not scared, but when I started training, there were some moments when I was scared. Whenever I went fast, over…
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