Tour de France: Bernal takes yellow from Alaphilippe as hail stops stage 19
The most dramatic mountain stage yet in the 2019 Tour de France ended in chaos when race organisers were forced to abandon the planned finish at Tignes because of a combination of hail, flooding and landslides, as Egan Bernal moved into the yellow jersey.
As the Colombian rode clear towards a likely stage victory and the maillot jaune, having finally distanced the long-term race leader, Julian Alaphilippe, severe weather on the long and rapid descent of the Col de l’Iseran caused the stage to be stopped.
While Bernal and Simon Yates plummeted down the Iseran climb, with Geraint Thomas in a pursuing group that included their rivals Steven Kruijswijk and Emmanuel Buchmann, images of the adverse conditions filled TV screens across France.
The race was immediately neutralised and the rest of the stage aborted with five kilometres of hail, flooding and mudslides rendering the route towards Tignes too dangerous to race. The time gaps at the summit of the giant Col de l’Iseran, which the Colombian crossed first, were then reflected in the overall standings, with Bernal awarded the race lead.
“There was no way through,” the Tour director, Christian Prudhomme, said. “They could not pass that.”
After the flood waters receded, the results showed that Bernal leads Alaphilippe by 48 seconds and his Ineos teammate Geraint Thomas by 1min 16sec.
Eventually presented with the yellow jersey at the planned finish in Tignes, the Colombian bowed his head and wept.
“It’s just incredible,” Bernal said. “There is a hard stage tomorrow with lots of tough climbing but I will now do everything that I can to hold on to this jersey until the race finishes in Paris.”
But Bernal admitted he had initially ignored the race neutralisation. “I heard some words in English but I didn’t really understand what they were saying,” he said. “I didn’t realise that they wanted us to stop. I asked them to repeat what they were saying in Spanish and it was only then that I really understood what was actually going on.
“I was feeling really good and when they said that I had to stop I told them: ‘No, I’m not going to.’ But then they explained to me that I was the race leader and would be in the yellow jersey. I couldn’t believe it and I still don’t believe it. I’m so happy.”
“It was dangerous,” Dave Brailsford said of the neutralisation. “When I saw the landslide and people running away, that was nothing to do with sport. My dad’s a mountain guide. That kind of thing is dangerous.”
Marc Madiot, manager of Thibaut Pinot’s Groupama FDJ team, agreed. “The safety of the riders is the first priority,” he said. “Imagine if one, two or three of them had crashed and ended up in a ravine or in hospital. Then what?”
But Bernal was not the only rider in tears. There was a funereal atmosphere among the crowds in Tignes, more to do with Thibaut Pinot’s dramatic abandonment, than the extreme weather conditions on the descent from the Iseran.
Pinot’s hopes of a yellow jersey ended earlier in the stage, as the Frenchman ground to a halt on the Montée d’Aussois, crying his eyes out, and left the race.
A muscle tear in his left thigh brought an end to the Frenchman’s race as the gnawing fear among all French fans that his body might let him down yet again became a reality. Pinot started the stage to Tignes with his thigh strapped and had, according to his Groupama FDJ team, struggled to walk on the evening of the stage finish in Valloire.
According to his sports director, Philippe Maudit, Pinot had banged the inside of his left thigh hard on the handlebars when avoiding a crash during the stage to Gap.
“The pain just got worse. We thought, despite everything, he might be able to carry on but we knew it would be complicated if the race was hard,” Maudit said. “He’s been in pain since the start. It wasn’t possible to keep riding.”
The fragility that caused Pinot to abandon the 2018 Giro d’Italia with pneumonia, 48 hours from the finish, while third overall struck again. In seven Tour starts Pinot has finished only three.
“I did all I could,” the Frenchman said. “I believed I might have had a chance [of continuing] and that it would pass. But unfortunately it did not. I was convinced that I could possibly win the Tour but unfortunately now I will never know. It will be hard to get over this.”
As Pinot exited the race, the dizzying heights of the Iseran also put paid to Alaphilippe and his dream finally came to an end 38km from the finish when Bernal attacked to leave him behind.
In a distance of a mere two kilometres, Bernal took back his deficit, and became the Tour’s yellow jersey on the road. Even a spate of verbal self-flagellation by Alaphilippe, who swore and cursed at himself, as he struggled to keep pace, did nothing to help.
Afterwards Thomas accepted his teammate’s supremacy. “The main thing is we’ve got the jersey in the team now,” the defending champion said. “We’re in a great position. We’ve just got to go and finish the job off tomorrow.
“Egan’s in yellow so the mainthing is he finishes the job. For sure he’ll have a decent advantage over everyone else, so we’ll fully support him now.”