{"id":129261,"date":"2025-09-11T05:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T05:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/129261\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T05:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T05:46:11","slug":"from-re-learning-how-to-walk-to-la-vuelta-victory-why-whole-cycling-world-is-celebrating-inspirational-egan-bernal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/129261\/","title":{"rendered":"From re-learning how to walk to La Vuelta victory: Why ‘whole cycling world’ is celebrating ‘inspirational’ Egan Bernal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Egan Bernal<\/a> was hailed as “incredibly inspirational” after earning his first Grand Tour stage win in four-and-a-half years at La Vuelta<\/a> to complete a remarkable comeback from a near-fatal crash. <\/p>\n

The Ineos Grenadiers rider suffered a horror crash in his native Colombia in January 2022 when he rode at high speed into a stationary bus.<\/p>\n

Bernal said afterwards<\/a> that “some people thought I was dead” after suffering 20 different fractures and being told by doctors he had a 95 per cent chance of becoming paraplegic.The 28-year-old, who won the Tour de France in 2019, had to relearn how to walk during a painstaking recovery process, but incredibly returned to racing seven months later, before claiming a superb Stage 16 win at La Vuelta<\/a>.The Breakaway team of Orla Chennaoui, Matt Stephens and Adam Blythe were in awe of Bernal\u2019s tenacity when discussing his victory on TNT Sports\u2019 coverage of La Vuelta, live on discovery+<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“A huge day. That lad has gone through everything you could possibly go through as a bike rider,” Blythe said.<\/p>\n

\"picture\"<\/p>\n

Bernal wins Stage 16 after protests force late cancellation of final climb<\/p>\n

Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n

“Learning to walk again, getting back on his bike and learning to ride his bike again, to the position he\u2019s in now. <\/p>\n

“He\u2019s definitely an inspiration to a lot of people, for what you can go through and still be as successful as he is.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s just remarkable. I think the character he is, never giving up, showing riders and people in every walk of life that you should never give up. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“He got to the point where he was super fit again, but then he crashed and broke his collar bone at the start of the season, so he had to fight all that again.<\/p>\n

“You think about everything he\u2019s gone through and has done, to keep having these problems, you would probably think \u2018I just can\u2019t do this anymore\u2019.<\/p>\n

“But here he is, that shows what it\u2019s all about, what it\u2019s worth to him, that you can get to that point again. He\u2019s just a great human being.”<\/p>\n

Bernal\u2019s triumph in Spain came in strange circumstances, with the final climb of Stage 16 cancelled due to protests near the summit.<\/p>\n

\"picture\"<\/p>\n

‘Issues, issues!’ – Vingegaard takes team-mate’s bike after puncture<\/p>\n

Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n

An alternative finish was hastily arranged, and the Colombian held off breakaway partner Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) to claim a victory that was widely celebrated in the cycling community.<\/p>\n

As Stephens pointed out, Bernal has not only fought his way back, but he is riding better than ever in an extremely competitive era in the sport. <\/p>\n

“Remarkably, given the journey he\u2019s undertaken, the injuries he\u2019s had to come back from, with all the setbacks Adam has just described, he has been producing his best numbers ever. That includes his Tour de France win and his Giro d\u2019Italia win,” Stephens said. <\/p>\n

“He has emerged fit again in this new environment. It\u2019s only a couple of years down the road, but we know cycling has changed dramatically. For him to win now is even more remarkable.<\/p>\n

“One of the things that is a tenet of his set of beliefs since the incident is the fact that nothing fazes him anymore because he\u2019s alive.<\/p>\n

\"picture\"<\/p>\n

‘My two worst days have been’ – Pidcock ‘good to go’ for final week<\/p>\n

Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n

“We are talking not just about catastrophic injuries where his family were told he may be paraplegic. He was never told that, it was actually that he may die.<\/p>\n

“So every day he\u2019s alive is a blessing, in his view. So that\u2019s why I think he\u2019s able to be so ridiculously pragmatic and embrace everything that\u2019s thrown at him and ultimately remain the champion that he is and an amazing human being who is just incredibly inspirational.<\/p>\n

“I think the whole cycling world and us lot are more than happy he got that win. He doesn\u2019t just deserve it, it feels like it\u2019s the right thing to have happened.”<\/p>\n

Watch La Vuelta live and on demand on TNT Sports and discovery+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Egan Bernal was hailed as “incredibly inspirational” after earning his first Grand Tour stage win in four-and-a-half years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,60069,101,56,54,55,59532],"class_list":{"0":"post-129261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-egan-bernal","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom","14":"tag-vuelta-a-espana-2025"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}