Tour de France 2023 Tour de France, Stage 1: Bilbao - Bilbao, 182 km (Spain, Saturday, July 1)

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perico

perico

Mar 11, 2009
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Lequack said:
Why do you folks think Egan Bernal can't win it?
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He wasn’t on the same level as Pogacar and Jonas before the accident. He couldn’t stay healthy then either: abandoned the TDF, looked like a shell of himself in his Giro he still won, and then couldn’t keep pace with Mas or Lopez (much less Roglic) in the mountains of La Vuelta.

So I could turn the question around and ask. Why would anyone think he could win a TdF now?
 
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Valv.Piti

Valv.Piti

Aug 3, 2015
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Shell of himself is rather harsh: He was flying on Giau which we never really got to see. Imagine if they had ridden the full stage, absolute carnage.

But yes, the last couple of stages he wasn't great, and the Vuelta he rode the same year wasn't that great either. My guess is he was still somewhat hampered by 2020.

We also never REALLY got to see him in 2019, he was great on Galibier and Iseran though which was to be expected, but then the cancellations happened. Pyrenees that year he would have gotten absolute smashed by these two guys.
 
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B

Bolder

Jun 25, 2015
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perico said:
He wasn’t on the same level as Pogacar and Jonas before the accident. He couldn’t stay healthy then either: abandoned the TDF, looked like a shell of himself in his Giro he still won, and then couldn’t keep pace with Mas or Lopez (much less Roglic) in the mountains of La Vuelta.

So I could turn the question around and ask. Why would anyone think he could win a TdF now?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I agree that top Bernal was just a bit below top Pog/Ving. His 2019 win was a little bit asterisked to me because of a few factors: the shortened stages, the Pinot injury (although I don't think he would have won) and Thomas held back (correctly) to ensure Bernal's win. That said, he was on an upward trajectory before his back injury so we may never know what his tippy top level is (or could have been). I give him a ton of credit for managing to win a GT with what was I assume a herniated disc (I have one! Ouch!) and then fighting back from a near-fatal crash.
 
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DNP-Old

DNP-Old

Aug 6, 2014
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Egan Bernal hasn't been healthy since.... I don't know.... since he was born? He has a leg length discrepancy, and with the body trying to compensate, he developed heavy scoliosis and a disc herniation. Joe Dombrowski, who looked like America's next big thing for a while, had the same issue and it nearly cost him his career.

These back problems weren't diagnosed until October of the year 2020 and can only be fixed with very long term methods. Whether he has made progress on this is impossible to say, given his life was only hanging on by a few pieces of tendon. Covid didn't do him any favours either (which he got just before La Vuelta, btw), as he had to rush a TDF prep, which I think did more harm than good. We've seen with Van der Poel what it can do.
 
QueenStagiaire

QueenStagiaire

Jun 30, 2022
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The only other cyclist winning a race in PCS‘s database in a town bearing their name was Romain Bacon winning the French junior ITT Championships in Bacon in 2008, let‘s hope another guy joins this list in a town starting with the letter B.
 
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