The Egan Bernal era looks to have begun on a day of high
drama at the Tour de France; stage 19 having no winner but a new race leader
and having lost one of the big French hopes.
Bernal (Team Ineos) took off from the select group on the
Col d’Iseran, which was supposed to be the penultimate climb of the day.
Going over the top he had one minute on the group he had
attacked, which included his team mate Geraint Thomas, and two minutes on
yellow jersey Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep).
The French race leader was already in trouble when Bernal attacked solo after Thomas had put him in trouble.
However, just as it looked like Bernal was on the brink
of a monster ride, the stage was cancelled on the descent due to a huge hail
shower and landslide on the road ahead.
Advertisement
It meant the final climb of the day, Montée de Tignes,
was cut from the race and the times for the general classification were taken
at the top of the Col d’Iseran.
As a result Bernal went into yellow at Alaphilippe’s
expense. In truth, had the race run its full course the Frenchman would have been
much further down than the 48 seconds he now trails new race leader Bernal.
Related News
Geraint Thomas, who looked very unhappy when the stage was halted, is now in 3rd place at 1:16 and has said he will ride for Bernal.
Steven Kruijswijk
(Jumbo-Visma) is 4th at 1:28 and
had the stage continued he would very likely be 3rd behind Bernal and Thomas.
The big drama in
the early part of the stage was the abandoning of the race of Tourmalet stage
winner Thibaut Pinot.
The Groupama-FDJ
rider had hit his thigh muscle off his handlebars and torn it. Today the injury
proved so painful he was forced to climb off and leave the race despite being
the rider most fancied to put it up to Team Ineos.
Dan Martin (UAE
Team Emirates) had gone in the early breakaway today but his below par form
continued and when the climbing began he was dropped.
It mattered
little anyway because once Bernal attacked he caught and passed all of the
escapees from the early move, with only Simon Yates (Mitchelton Scott) looking possibly
able to hold him.
Cancelling the
stage was a huge anti climax and it was a shame that Bernal was not tested all
the way to the line.
Topics
