The 2019 Tour de France<\/a> champion finished stage 6 of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> high in Andorra with the GC favorites and celebrated the stage by hugging his partner and longtime friends at the mountaintop finish as if it were a personal victory.<\/p>\n And it was.<\/p>\n Four years removed from a near-fatal crash that nearly ended his career, Bernal is suddenly back in the conversation.<\/p>\n The Ineos Grenadiers star sits just 22 seconds behind Jonas Vingegaard in the overall standings after surviving the Vuelta\u2019s first real summit test.<\/p>\n \u201cDoes it feel strange to be at the front again? It feels wonderful to be here where I am right now,\u201d Bernal said beaming at the line. \u201cAfter all the efforts of the last four years, I want to enjoy the race and see where we end up.\u201d<\/p>\n Bernal celebrated with his inner circle on Thursday, hugging his partner and other friends waiting at the Andorra summit, including former teammate Iv\u00e1n Sosa.<\/p>\n \u201cI am here with my family and my closest friends who\u2019ve been with me these past three or four years that have been the hardest of my life,\u201d he said. \u201cI really appreciate them for standing by me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I keep believing I can be my best again\u2019 The Ineos Grenadiers star quietly entered the Vuelta looking for a revival after finishing seventh at the Giro d\u2019Italia, his best grand tour since his 2022 crash in Colombia.<\/p>\n So far, things are lining up pretty well.<\/p>\n Bernal survived the opening stages in Italy, and Ineos Grenadiers rode to fifth in Wednesday\u2019s team time trial to keep him close.<\/p>\n On Thursday, he could match the pace in the GC group after a big breakaway pulled clear to win the stage and snag the leader\u2019s jersey. He\u2019s now 11th overall, seventh on the \u201cvirtual\u201d GC after some breakaway riders moved up.<\/p>\n Another big test comes Friday with the summit finale in Cerler high in the Spanish Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if I will achieve it, but I wake up every morning believing that I can come back to be my best,\u201d Bernal said. \u201cI keep dreaming, because hope is the last thing that you lose.\u201d<\/p>\n Bernal\u2019s never lost hope. Now the question is if his legs can match his dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“], “filter”: { “nextExceptions”: “img, blockquote, div”, “nextContainsExceptions”: “img, blockquote, a.btn, a.o-button”} }”> PAL, Andorra (Velo) \u2014 Egan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,59638,59639,5900,82,32801],"class_list":{"0":"post-103909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-egan-bernal","12":"tag-ineos-grenadiers","13":"tag-jonas-vingegaard","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-vuelta-a-espana"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"Egan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2232543387-720x480.jpg\")
Bernal shares a moment with friends after the stage. (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n