Only two years have gone past since Egan Bernal last raced the Vuelta a España, but if the Colombian goes into the Spanish Grand Tour with a very different perspective to August 2021, his determination to do as good a race as possible for Ineos Grenadiers remains as intact as ever.
Sixth in 2021, Bernal had won the Giro d’Italia earlier that season as part of his bounceback from a series of back injuries that poleaxed his 2020 Tour de France.
This time, after his life-threatening accident of January 2022 and 34th place in the Tour this summer, the comeback is a much steeper one. But Bernal, who’ll be working to defend Geraint Thomas’ GC chances, was upbeat about what he could achieve on a personal level as well.
“A victory here would be very special,” Bernal said in a press conference on Thursday. “But I’m here with the mentality of helping the team, and to do my best for G. He’s come here having taking two Grand Tour podiums in the last two Grand Tours he’s done, and that’s something exceptional.
“My own goal is to lay down some more foundations for next year and to build my confidence for the 2024 season.”
Bernal pointed out that after getting back into racing late last season and then finishing the Tour de France, he was no longer in a place where his comeback had so many visible landmarks as before.
“My recovery is going well, but I’m at the stage now where you can’t see the progress as clearly as last year.
“I’m very motivated, though, and I feel like I can be a rider who can make as much of a contribution as possible. That would be the ideal, anyway.”
His first opportunity to do that will come in the team time trial on Saturday. Quite apart from being a rare chance for an entire squad to stand on the podium as winners, the 14.8-kilometre race against the clock is a chance to start building the gaps on the rest of the field, he argued.
“It’s also important for the team’s morale to be up there and fight for the GC in that very first chrono,” he argued. “That’s why every team wants to do it as well as possible.”
Bernal’s return to the Vuelta also recently drew praise from race director Javier Guillén, who told Colombian newspaper El Tiempo he was “very pleased” that Bernal had opted to ride his second Grand Tour of 2023 in Spain this August.
“It’s very important for us that he’s here,” Guillén said, “and we hope he goes on recovering in the best way possible.
“It’ll help him gain more confidence. Whenever a bike rider is affected by some sort of incident, it it creates anxiety and racing is their preferred way to learn to handle that. The Vuelta is ideal for Egan to go on building back to his full race pace - there can be no doubt about that.”
