Colombian Bernal storms (literally) into Tour glory
TIGNES, FRANCE — In an instant, and just as it was becoming even more thrilling, the most exciting Tour de France in decades became truly bizarre.
A violent hailstorm threw cycling’s greatest race into chaos on Friday, forcing organizers to cut short a nail-biting stage in the high Alps because riders were speeding, unbeknownst to them, headlong toward a road that had suddenly become covered with ice and giant puddles and cut in half by a rock slide.
Concerned for riders’ safety on mountain roads that can be dangerous at the best of times, race organizers made an on-the-spot and extremely rare decision that the stage couldn’t continue.
The shock wave was immediate and heavy in repercussions.
Unable to reach the planned finish at the ski station of Tignes, organizers decided that riders’ placings would instead be based on their time at the top of the highest mountain pass of this Tour — the Iseran, at 2,770 metres above sea level — which leading riders, but not all, had just scaled when the race was stopped.
And just like that, Colombian rider Egan Bernal found himself in the yellow jersey.
He flew away from Julian Alaphilippe on the climb and reached the top 2 minutes, 10 seconds ahead of the Frenchman, who had held the race lead for a total of 14 days.
Bernal was speeding down hairpins on the other side, with Alaphilippe hot on his trail, hoping to save his race lead, when they received the order to stop racing.
“I don’t really know what happened. I was speeding, attacking, and everything was going well and then they told me to stop. I didn’t want to stop,” Bernal said through a translator on French television.
“When they told me that I was the race leader and I had the yellow jersey, I couldn’t believe it and I still can’t believe it.”
Organizers scrambled to deal with the disarray and riders clambered off their bikes, not sure what was going on.
Exceptionally, there was no winner of Stage 19, because no one had reached the finish.
“This Tour is crazy,” race director Christian Prudhomme said. “We would never have imagined a day like this.”
Michael Woods of Ottawa sits 36th overall, while Hugo Houle of Sainte-Perpétue, Que., is 96th.
After making France dream of having a first Tour winner since 1985 — and having contributed more than anyone to make this Tour more memorable than most with his punchy riding, — Alaphillipe lost the race lead as the Champs-Élysées in Paris was almost within touching distance.
Prudhomme said the hairraising speeds of Bernal, Alaphilippe and other riders on the downhill from the Iseran in part prompted the decision to stop the race there and then. “We could see that they were taking risks and we knew that they couldn’t go much further,” he said. “The only thing that counts is the riders’ health and safety. It was impossible.”
Bernal was 1:30 behind Alaphilippe at the start of the stage. Ahead of Saturday’s final trek in the Alps, the last stage before a traditional processional ride to Paris, the 22-year-old Bernal is now in an ideal position to become the first Colombian to win cycling’s biggest race.