Colombian Egan Bernal, who is trying to return to the highest level following his terrible accident a year ago, has given up the Tour of Andalusia which begins on Wednesday, his team Ineos announced on Tuesday. The winner of the 2019 Tour de France made a pretty good impression at the Tour de San Juan in Argentina in mid-January before abandoning the race because of pain in his left knee contracted during a fall.
Withdrawn from the National Championship in Colombia earlier this month, he said he wanted to take his time as he, 26, tries to regain his former glory, a year following crashing head-on into a bus at the stop during training on January 24, 2022. Victim of fractures to a vertebra, right femur, right patella, perforation of the lung and head trauma, the Ineos climber had almost left there the life.
Paris-Nice before thinking regarding the Tour de France?
After another operation on his right knee at the end of the season and another on his nose, he spent the winter training at home, sometimes under downpours, and hopes to return to the Tour de France in 2023. The Tour of Andalusia, in which the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, his successor on the Big Loop in 2020, will participate in particular, was supposed to serve as his preparation.
But neither he nor his team want to rush things, while ensuring that the problem is not serious. Ineos, which announced its roster for the five-stage race on Tuesday, remains superbly armed with riders like Tao Geoghegan Hart, Carlos Rodriguez and Pavel Sivakov.
