Tour de France 2019: Egan Bernal all but wins the yellow jersey as Geraint Thomas settles for second
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Your support makes all the difference.Egan Bernal, Team Ineos’s prodigious young Colombian, all but secured his first Tour de France victory in Val Thorens as he crossed the finish line of stage 20 hand in hand with his team-mate Geraint Thomas.
Thomas finished second overall, with the Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk third after Julian Alaphilippe cracked on the mountain and ended fifth.
For the 22-year-old Bernal he just needs to finish the race in Paris on Sunday to ensure he collects the maillot jaune on the Champs-Elysees, with the 21st and final stage a procession into Paris before the final sprint for glory in the capital.
With one more stage to tackle and the ability for anything yet to happen no matter how unlikely, Bernal will not get ahead of himself. "I'm really happy for sure but when we arrive at the hotel and I will be alone maybe I will believe it.
"I have not won it yet, we have one stage in front of us ... but yeah, it's almost ready. I almost won the Tour.I felt really good but the pace was really hard. For sure (Jumbo-Visma) were pushing really hard because they wanted the podium but I felt really good.
"It's our first Tour so you can imagine (the reaction in Colombia). I think it's really important for us. I'm really proud to be the first Colombian to win the Tour."
While Bernal’s victory is not a huge surprise given his impressive breakthrough last year and form over the last 12 months, the ability of Team Ineos to secure a one-two finish without four-time Tour winner Chris Froome took some sinking in. But after vowing to help Bernal home, Thomas managed to haul himself up to second place to add to his Tour triumph last year.
"It was one of those, with Kruijswijk so close to me, I didn't want to chase Nibali and maybe blow," Thomas said. "Kruijswijk could win the stage and put three seconds into me and I would lose second, so we played it safe and I rode at the end with Egan in the wheel.
"It was really nice to cross the line together. First and second, well, it doesn't get much better than that."
However, the disappointment of not being able to record back-to-back wins added to his early exit at the recent Criterium du Dauphine was clear to see on Thomas’ face, as well as in his words.
"It's been an eventful year, to be honest," he added. "Lots of ups and downs. Mainly downs. I've given it my best and done everything I could to try to win.
"For one reason or another it hasn't happened but when a team-mate wins it makes it all the better."
Vincenzo Nibali collected the stage victory in the Alpine ski resort but the biggest celebrations will be at the Team Ineos hotel, where the team formally known as Team Sky will celebrate a seventh Tour win out of the last eight.
Bernal, the first Colombian to win the Tour, was almost named the winner without a pedal being turned on Saturday as the bad weather which struck on Friday continued in the Alps, and threatened to see the stage from Albertville, already cut from 130km to 59km, abandoned all together.
But the rain, hail and lightning held off long enough for the race to be run at an aggressive pace given the short distance.
Bahrain-Merida's Nibali, the 2014 Tour winner but never a contender this year after his efforts in the Giro d'Italia, took the stage win out of the breakaway while Jumbo-Visma set the pace behind, looking to shake off Alaphilippe to get Kruijswijk on the podium.
Nibali made the decisive move on the 33.4km climb to Val Thorens 13 kilometres from the summit, just as Alaphilippe was going the other way off the back of the main group.
This was arguably the weakest Team Ineos have looked in their long-running dominance of the race, and yet they emerged with their best result since Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome occupied the top two steps of the podium in 2012.
They did not take the yellow jersey until Bernal's attack on the Col de l'Iseran paid dividends on a weather-shortened stage 19, and the sight of their riders massed on the front of the peloton setting a pace designed to burn off their rivals has been rare.
But that will not matter to team principal Sir Dave Brailsford, whose investment in the precocious Bernal has paid off even sooner than expected.
Bernal had been pencilled into lead the team at the Giro in May, but after a training crash ruled him out, he turned attention to the Tour, where he expected to be supporting Thomas and Froome.
But after Froome's crash at the Criterium du Dauphine and Thomas' spill at the Tour de Suisse, Bernal was elevated to co-leader status and has repaid the faith shown in him.
Though he did not win a stage - with no victor named on stage 19 where he crested the Iseran first - Bernal was consistently attacking in the mountains to make up for the time he lost to Thomas in the stage 13 time trial.
Additional reporting by PA
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