Egan Bernal

Bernal started his 2019 season in Colombia. He rode in the national championships and in his home stage race, the Tour Colombia. Bernal, however, was unable to defend his title in the race, finishing fourth overall. Bernal later went to Europe to compete in Paris–Nice. The Colombian impressed in the crosswinds, the individual time trial, and in the mountains, claiming the overall victory ahead of Nairo Quintana.

Bernal made his debut for Team Sky in the Tour Down Under as team co-leader, in which he won the young rider classification and finished sixth in the overall standings. In February 2018, Bernal won the Colombian National Time Trial Championships. He went on to win the first edition of the Tour Colombia (then called Colombia Oro y Paz), through an attack on the final 20-kilometre (12-mile) climb on the last day.

2017 saw top ten finishes for Bernal in the Vuelta a San Juan and the Tour de Langkawi. He later finished third overall in the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali, second in the Giro dell'Appennino, and ninth in the Tour of the Alps. His first professional wins came in the Sibiu Cycling Tour, with two stage victories as well as the overall. He also won two stages and the overall title at the Tour de l'Avenir. Although he was still under contract to Androni Giocattoli–Sidermec and a contract buyout payment reported to be €350,000 was necessary, Bernal signed a five year deal with Team Sky from the 2018 season. He completed his time in Savio's team with fifth in the Giro della Toscana and top twenty places in Giro dell'Emilia, Milano–Torino and his first monument, Il Lombardia.

Alongside mountain biking, Bernal had begun to gain success in junior road racing both in Colombia and Italy, winning the Clasica Juventudes Cajica and the Sognando Il Giro delle Fiandre in 2015.

He initially focused on and excelled at mountain biking, winning races in Brazil, Costa Rica, and the United States, and getting both silver (2014) and bronze (2015) in the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships junior cross country events.

Bernal was signed by Gianni Savio to the Androni Giocattoli–Sidermec team on a four year contract, partly on the evidence of a VO2 max reading of 88.8ml/kg/min provided by his agent, Paolo Alberati. He began racing among seniors straight away, bypassing the usual U23 career route. In 2016, he obtained top 20 results in the La Méditerranéenne, the GP Industria & Artigianato, Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali and Giro del Trentino, before winning the (then) lower level Tour of Bihor and coming fourth in both the Tour de Slovenie and the Tour de l'Avenir.

Egan Arley Bernal Gómez (born 13 January 1997) is a Colombian cyclist, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Team Ineos. He won the 2019 Tour de France, becoming the first Latin American winner of the race.

He thus became the first Colombian or South American rider, and second from the Americas, to win the Tour de France, and also won the best young rider competition. He is the youngest General Classification winner since 1909 and the third youngest ever at 22 years, 196 days. “It’s incredible, I don’t know what to say,” Bernal said. “I’ve won the Tour but I don’t manage to believe it. I need a couple of days to assimilate all this. It’s for my family and I just want to hug them. It’s a feeling of happiness that I don’t know how to describe it.” The young champion cyclist went on to say the victory was also for his home country of Colombia. “This is not only my triumph,” Bernal said. “It’s the triumph of a whole country.”