Egan Bernal pulls out of the Tour de France

Out: Egan Bernal
AP
Matt Majendie @mattmajendie16 September 2020

Egan Bernal has pulled out of the Tour de France following a disappointing race for the defending champion.

Ineos Grenadiers had been confident the 23-year-old – who has been nursing back and knee issues - could pull off a second Tour win to the extent that former race winners Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas were left out of their race line-up.

But the Colombian had fallen well out of contention, lying 16th and nearly 20 minutes behind race leader Primoz Roglic at the time of his retirement.

Following his withdrawal, the team said he would instead reset his goals for the remainder of the season.

Team principal Sir Dave Brailsford said: “We have taken this decision with Egan’s best interests at heart. Egan is a true champion who loves to race but he is also a young rider with many Tours ahead of him and, at this point on balance, we feel it is wiser for him to stop racing.”

Bernal’s hopes of vying for the win in Paris had long gone, in the process denying his team a sixth straight win at cycling’s blue-riband event.

Bermal himself said: “This is obviously not how I wanted my Tour de France to end but I agree that is the right decision for me in the circumstances. I have the greatest respect for this race and I am already looking forward to coming back in the years ahead.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in