• Turn Narration and Ratings

The fascination that young talent produces is a double-edged sword for athletes, because an early victory quickly rises to the expectation of a record sports career.

Egan Bernal won the Tour in 2019 at the age of 22

and the question then was how many he was going to be able to add. But the wave of euphoria is eradicated as soon as a new runner appears, as young or older, who reaches milestones inappropriate for his age. And so, the pomp of the first Colombian champion in Paris was buried last year by the feat of Tadej Pogacar on the Tour itself and by the brutal exhibitions offered by Remco Evenepoel in each race in which he participated, even if they were minor tests. That's how cruel and forgetful professional sport is. Get out of here, your time is past.

The star of the

Condor de Zipaquirá

suddenly went out eight months ago on the ramps of the Grand Colombier. The current Tour champion had already shown signs of weakness before, but it was then that he gave up hopelessly, more than seven minutes with respect to Pogacar and Roglic, confirming that he was going to be unable to continue his triumph of the previous year. He had silently suffered severe back discomfort, which he had been dealing with during his still incipient career, but on September 13, 2020, his body far exceeded the pain threshold. He left a day later, did not compete again throughout the season and sowed reasonable doubt. Would he go back to being the one he was, the one he sensed he was going to be? Had that triumph on the Tour been a passing success, one of many?

The first step had to be to delve into the cause of those back pain that had not stopped growing until

the day of the Grand Colombier.

He underwent various tests and the doctors came to a conclusion: his problem was that one of his legs was a centimeter and a half longer than the other, which led to scoliosis - a curvature of the spine - and inflammation of the spine. one of his nerves, the last cause of his pain. Without the possibility of surgery, rehabilitation and correcting his posture on the bicycle were the only recipes to stick to. And in them he focused the effort during winter and spring, with the Giro as the setting in which to seek his redemption.

"My back still hurts some days," Bernal now admits, triumphant in the first drawer of the podium in Milan. In the Giro, less competitive and more adjusted to its virtues than the Tour, the Colombian has found the springboard to return through the front door to the elite of world cycling. Sunday's time trial served to confirm what was already known: that he

had been the best man of this Giro

.

His two days of weakness in the last week saved them with mental strength and relying on the hard work of an impeccable Ineos.

Ganna, Castroviejo and Martínez have a lot to do with its success.

Bernal, in short, has returned.

And it is impossible not to think about the 2022 Tour, about his pending rematch with Roglic and Pogacar.

In which perhaps the fascination for him will return and he will end up being the vintage cyclist that everyone wanted to see.

Time will tell.

Ganna takes the chrono

Despite having to change bikes due to a puncture,

Filippo Ganna won

the Milan time trial this Sunday, taking advantage of a fall by Remi Cavagna with 500 meters to go, when the Frenchman was setting the best time.

The 'chrono' also served to confirm the second place of Damiano Caruso and the third of Simon Yates.

They complete, in order, the 'top10' Aleksandr Vlasov, Daniel Felipe Martínez, Joao Almeida, Romain Bardet, Hugh Carthy, Tobias Foss and Dan Martin.

Pello Bilbao (13th) finishes as the best Spanish.

Peter Sagan has prevailed in the classification of regularity, Geoffrey Bouchard in that of the mountain, Ineos-Grenadiers in that of teams and Bernal, of course, was also the best youngster.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Egan bernal

  • Paris

  • sports

  • cycling

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