Teams & Riders The official Egan Bernal is the new Egan Bernal thread

[Panda Claws]

Beats Contadors 25. Who’s the youngest to do it or was that Contador?

Can't be too many riders who won all three so let's check. Especially not in the past because of how the calendar was different. The Vuelta used to be in april/may.
It's actually Hinault and Contador is 'only' 3rd.

1. Bernard Hinault (14/11/1954): Won the Giro of 1980 at 25 years 6 months 23 days of age.
2. Felice Gimondi (29/09/1942): Won the Vuelta of 1968 at 25 years 7 months 13 days of age.
3. Alberto Contador (06/12/1982): Won the Vuelta of 2008 at 25 years 9 months 15 days of age.
4. Eddy Merckx (17/06/1945): Won the Vuelta of 1973 at 27 years 10 months 26 days of age.
5. Jacques Anquetil (08/01/1934): Won the Vuelta of 1963 at 29 years 4 months 7 days of age.
6. Vincenzo Nibali (14/11/1984): Won the Tour of 2014 at 29 years 8 months 13 days of age.
7. Chris Froome (20/05/1985): Won the Giro of 2018 at 33 years 0 months 7 days of age.

Tony Rominger and Miguel Indurain came close to winning all three. But let me know if I missed someone.

 

[Cassirer]

Two weeks of imperious riding, one bad day, two days of controlled, smart pacing. Amazing teammates yes, but no doubt to me the strongest guy wins (baring catastrophies). And how happy I am for him after the tough year he faced!

 

[Pricey_sky]

Can't be too many riders who won all three so let's check. Especially not in the past because of how the calendar was different. The Vuelta used to be in april/may.
It's actually Hinault and Contador is 'only' 3rd.

1. Bernard Hinault (14/11/1954): Won the Giro of 1980 at 25 years 6 months 23 days of age.
2. Felice Gimondi (29/09/1942): Won the Vuelta of 1968 at 25 years 7 months 13 days of age.
3. Alberto Contador (06/12/1982): Won the Vuelta of 2008 at 25 years 9 months 15 days of age.
4. Eddy Merckx (17/06/1945): Won the Vuelta of 1973 at 27 years 10 months 26 days of age.
5. Jacques Anquetil (08/01/1934): Won the Vuelta of 1963 at 29 years 4 months 7 days of age.
6. Vincenzo Nibali (14/11/1984): Won the Tour of 2014 at 29 years 8 months 13 days of age.
7. Chris Froome (20/05/1985): Won the Giro of 2018 at 33 years 0 months 7 days of age.

Tony Rominger and Miguel Indurain came close to winning all three. But let me know if I missed someone.

Thanks for this.

So if Bernal wins the Vuelta this year he breaks the record, if he wins it next year he goes 3rd on the list (approx 25 years and 8 months of age at that point).

This is assuming he doesn’t ship 2 minutes tomorrow of course!

 

[roundabout]

I highly doubt Contador’s record of winning all 3 within the first 4 raced will ever be beaten. Even doing it by the age of 25 is a huge ask.

Hinault needed 4 as well so it's Hinault/Contador's record

 

[luckyboy]

So he'll be with A.Yates and Pidcock in the Vuelta.

I wonder if Sivakov and Martínez would be there too. And then you have Sosa who hasn't raced any GT for Ineos yet.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Job done, more than strong enough today.

Time to rest up and prepare for the Vuelta while his challengers slog it around France and then Tokyo.
Potential to tick off all 3 GT’s by the age of 24?

Yes, the fact that the Slovenians will be battling at the Tour and Olympics (plus two large time zone changes) will play into Bernal's favour at the Vuelta.

 

[Pricey_sky]

So he'll be with A.Yates and Pidcock in the Vuelta.

I wonder if Sivakov and Martínez would be there too. And then you have Sosa who hasn't raced any GT for Ineos yet.

Carapaz could back up and do the Tour/ Vuelta again too.

 

[jaylew]

Barring anything crazy, he'll be the 1st to win the Giro and Tour before 25 since Merckx and the 4th to do it ever adding Bartali and Gimondi.

 

[Panda Claws]

Thanks for this.

So if Bernal wins the Vuelta this year he breaks the record, if he wins it next year he goes 3rd on the list (approx 25 years and 8 months of age at that point).

This is assuming he doesn’t ship 2 minutes tomorrow of course!

Yes and if Bernal does so then Pogacar has to win both the Giro and the Vuelta in 2022 if he wants to beat Bernal. If he is 'late' and gets the Giro in 2023 then he is probably going to be about two weeks slower then Bernal.

So the record could heat up for sure. But ofc if Bernal doesn't win this year's Vuelta then Pogacar has quite a bit of room to beat Hinault. And the insane scenario where Pogacar wins Vuelta 2021 and Giro 2022 would make for an unbreakable record because he would be around 23 years and 8 months.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Reminds me of Contadors first Giro win with the last week in mind, allthough Bernal seemed better the 2 first weeks, but I think the field Contador raced was stronger.

 

[Gigs_98]

100% the deserved winner. He had a bad day on Wednesday and a mediocre one yesterday but overall he was far and beyond the best climber of the race. It's a pity we didn't see more of him on the Giau as that could have been a pretty mythical stage win under these conditions.

That said, the third week leaves a few questionmarks. If it's true that he had his bad day because of dehydration and he otherwise would have gone through the third week unharmed then it's all good. If not then I have to question whether his consistency and his ability to perform well in easier mountain stages. That might be problematic if he tries to win the Vuelta. I'm not sure though. He was really good on stage 20, so it's not like his shape generally faded and the first stage he won was basically an uphill sprint after a softpedalled mountain stage. That bad day just doesn't make all that much sense to me. In any case, I'm really looking forward to seeing this Bernal going up against Pogacar and Roglic in the future.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Congrats for winning Giro 2021. Not the strongest but not the weakest field. Stellar performance on all terrains. Won't be surprised if we get to see a decent TT tomorrow.

 

[Red Rick]

100% the deserved winner. He had a bad day on Wednesday and a mediocre one yesterday but overall he was far and beyond the best climber of the race. It's a pity we didn't see more of him on the Giau as that could have been a pretty mythical stage win under these conditions.

That said, the third week leaves a few questionmarks. If it's true that he had his bad day because of dehydration and he otherwise would have gone through the third week unharmed then it's all good. If not then I have to question whether his consistency and his ability to perform well in easier mountain stages. That might be problematic if he tries to win the Vuelta. I'm not sure though. He was really good on stage 20, so it's not like his shape generally faded and the first stage he won was basically an uphill sprint after a softpedalled mountain stage. That bad day just doesn't make all that much sense to me. In any case, I'm really looking forward to seeing this Bernal going up against Pogacar and Roglic in the future.

Saying he's bad at easier mountain stages flatout ignores the first 12 stages, and Sega di Ala was pretty much the hardest 2 climb combo in the Giro. Yates clearly didn't do well in the poor weather, but did best in the purest W/kg fests in the Giro. Doesn't seem to have the greatest fatigue resistance of the lot.

Bernal is great at W/kg fests and extremely fatigue resistant, but I think he doesn't like heat very much. Also Sega di Ala was a tactical mistake to try and follow Yates and underestimate the climb and cracking himself. I don't think he was that much worse on Sega di Ala than Alpe di Mera. Just ran into Yates on Yates extremely narrow range of world beating. Similarly I don't think Bernal was that much better today, Caruso and Martinez were clearly stronger IMO.

If there's back issues or other issues, he's managed them well, but he still got dropped by guys like Almeida, Caruso and Yates on some big climbs and if he goes against Pogacar or Roglic on equal form I'll bet against him on any GT route.

 

[Rollthedice]

I like this Bernal.

Saying he's bad at easier mountain stages flatout ignores the first 12 stages, and Sega di Ala was pretty much the hardest 2 climb combo in the Giro. Yates clearly didn't do well in the poor weather, but did best in the purest W/kg fests in the Giro. Doesn't seem to have the greatest fatigue resistance of the lot.

Bernal is great at W/kg fests and extremely fatigue resistant, but I think he doesn't like heat very much. Also Sega di Ala was a tactical mistake to try and follow Yates and underestimate the climb and cracking himself. I don't think he was that much worse on Sega di Ala than Alpe di Mera. Just ran into Yates on Yates extremely narrow range of world beating. Similarly I don't think Bernal was that much better today, Caruso and Martinez were clearly stronger IMO.

If there's back issues or other issues, he's managed them well, but he still got dropped by guys like Almeida, Caruso and Yates on some big climbs and if he goes against Pogacar or Roglic on equal form I'll bet against him on any GT route.

But he is one of the best three GT riders and he is building rather quickly a nice trophy cabinet.

 

[Oldermanish]

100% the deserved winner. He had a bad day on Wednesday and a mediocre one yesterday but overall he was far and beyond the best climber of the race. It's a pity we didn't see more of him on the Giau as that could have been a pretty mythical stage win under these conditions.

That said, the third week leaves a few questionmarks. If it's true that he had his bad day because of dehydration and he otherwise would have gone through the third week unharmed then it's all good. If not then I have to question whether his consistency and his ability to perform well in easier mountain stages. That might be problematic if he tries to win the Vuelta. I'm not sure though. He was really good on stage 20, so it's not like his shape generally faded and the first stage he won was basically an uphill sprint after a softpedalled mountain stage. That bad day just doesn't make all that much sense to me. In any case, I'm really looking forward to seeing this Bernal going up against Pogacar and Roglic in the future.

Bernal's bad day makes perfect sense to me; having committed the same Cat 4 error of not drinking/eating enough while at the head of a race. It takes another day to recover from excess fluid loss (stage 19) and he rode carefully that day. Today he looked like he had a controlled, victorious TT in mind and had his data set on "no red zone" alarm. Dani Martinez was perfect at pacing and keeping him confidently in check. Tomorrow's TT will tell but he seems to be very much in touch with his abilities.

Another GT with some of the other Big Names will be a true test but you take the wins every time you can. Good luck to him in the TT!

 

[Gigs_98]

Saying he's bad at easier mountain stages flatout ignores the first 12 stages, and Sega di Ala was pretty much the hardest 2 climb combo in the Giro. Yates clearly didn't do well in the poor weather, but did best in the purest W/kg fests in the Giro. Doesn't seem to have the greatest fatigue resistance of the lot.

Bernal is great at W/kg fests and extremely fatigue resistant, but I think he doesn't like heat very much. Also Sega di Ala was a tactical mistake to try and follow Yates and underestimate the climb and cracking himself. I don't think he was that much worse on Sega di Ala than Alpe di Mera. Just ran into Yates on Yates extremely narrow range of world beating. Similarly I don't think Bernal was that much better today, Caruso and Martinez were clearly stronger IMO.

If there's back issues or other issues, he's managed them well, but he still got dropped by guys like Almeida, Caruso and Yates on some big climbs and if he goes against Pogacar or Roglic on equal form I'll bet against him on any GT route.

I was about to write the same in my comment, but then I remembered that if I'm not mistaken the 2019 Tour had ridiculously hot weather going into the Alps. I think many people at the time were worried for Pinot because they feared he would suffer from that. In any case, while the weather in the Alps stages of that Tour wasn't great I feel like he wouldn't have improved so much from the pyrenees to the Alps if he would suffer from too much heat.

 

[CTQ]

So he'll be with A.Yates and Pidcock in the Vuelta.

I wonder if Sivakov and Martínez would be there too. And then you have Sosa who hasn't raced any GT for Ineos yet.

Sosa: Giro 2019 et Vuelta 2020

 

[BlueRoads]

Didn't he somewhere say he was at 70% before the Giro?
Or did I dream that?
At least he said something about not being at 100% and it made me not pick him for the prediction game.
In any case I am very happy for him his back held up, that must give him confidence and some peace, and hopefully that issue will get better in the future. There probably won't be that many GTs in the future, apart from Vueltas, where there are hardly GC guys better at time trialing than him and such few tt kilometers at all. This was a very good opportunity for him and although Caruso's story is great itself I really hope for Bernal to have a happy ending tomorrow.

 

[Panda Claws]

Because I was not done looking up stats I also looked into the youngest cyclists to win any 3 Grand Tours. As it turns out there have been cyclists who have done so at only 24 years of age and therefore this is a record Bernal will not be able to claim but het can still become 2nd best.

1. Gino Bartali (18/07/1914) – Won the Tour of 1938 at 24 years 0 months 13 days of age
2. Bernard Hinault (14/11/1954) – Won the Tour of 1979 at 24 years 8 months 8 days of age
3. Eddy Merckx (17/06/1945) – Won the Giro of 1970 at 24 years 11 months 20 days of age
4. Felice Gimondi (29/09/1942) – Won the Vuelta of 1968 at 25 years 7 months 13 days of age
5. Alberto Contador (06/12/1982) – Won the Vuelta of 2008 at 25 years 9 months 15 days of age
6. Alfredo Binda (11/08/1902) – Won the Giro of 1928 at 25 years 9 months 23 days of age
7. Charly Gaul (08/12/1932) – Won the Giro of 1959 at 26 years 5 months 30 days of age
8. Jan Ullrich (02/12/1973) – Won the Tour of 2000 at 26 years 7 months 21 days of age* (if you grant him the TDF's where he got 2nd behind Armstrong)
9. Jacques Anquetil (08/01/1934) – Won the Tour of 1961 at 27 years 6 months 8 days of age
10. Miguel Indurain (16/07/1964) – Won the Tour of 1992 at 28 years 0 months 10 days of age

And to fully milk it. Here are those who win any 4 Grand Tours the quickest and those who won 5 the quickest.

Spoiler: Four Grand Tours

1. Eddy Merckx (17/06/1945) - Won the Tour of 1970 at 25 years 1 month 2 days of age
2. Bernard Hinault (14/11/1954) - Won the Giro of 1980 at 25 years 6 months 23 days of age
3. Alberto Contador (06/12/1982) - Won the Tour of 2009 at 26 years 7 months 20 days of age
4. Felice Gimondi (29/09/1942) - Won the Giro of 1969 at 26 years 8 months 9 days of age
5. Alfedo Binda (11/08/1902) - Won the Giro of 1929 at 26 years 9 months 29 days of age

Spoiler: Five Grand Tours

1. Eddy Merckx (17/06/1945) - Won the Tour of 1971 at 26 years 1 month 1 day of age
2. Bernard Hinault (14/11/1954) - Won the Tour of 1981 at 26 years 8 months 5 days of age
3. Alberto Contador (06/12/1982) - Won the Tour of 2010 at 27 years 7 months 19 days of age (if you still count that as a victory, else he is 6th)
4. Miguel Indurain (16/07/1964) - Won the Tour of 1993 at 29 years 0 months 9 days of age
5. Jacques Anquetil (08/01/1934) - Won the Vuelta of 1963 at 29 years 4 months 7 days of age

 

[Red Rick]

I was about to write the same in my comment, but then I remembered that if I'm not mistaken the 2019 Tour had ridiculously hot weather going into the Alps. I think many people at the time were worried for Pinot because they feared he would suffer from that. In any case, while the weather in the Alps stages of that Tour wasn't great I feel like he wouldn't have improved so much from the pyrenees to the Alps if he would suffer from too much heat.

Could be true. Maybe I'm mixing up Poggers and Bernal a bit here.

Would've been cool to see him manage himself without all the doms the last few days. TT should be good for future reference.

 

[Cookster15]

but he still got dropped by guys like Almeida, Caruso and Yates on some big climbs and if he goes against Pogacar or Roglic on equal form I'll bet against him on any GT route.

Of course the benchmark is Rog and Pog but Bernal also dropped Almeida, Caruso and Yates by more time which is why he leads the Giro by 2 minutes. Maybe altitude helped Bernal today too It certainly didn't help Yates.

 

[roundabout]

GTs are 3 weeks, but being arguably the 5th strongest rider across the last 3 mountain stages is not a particularly good sign.

 

[Forever The Best]

Although the overall win never looked like majorly threatened, this is yet another case of final few mountain stages completely turning the pecking order in the Giro.
2015: Contador cracked on Finestre
2016: Madness throughout the final week, Kruiswijk crashes and gets injured, Chavez also fades, Nibali rises from dead
2017: Dumoulin looked very weak in the final week ( I still think he would have lost the Giro had they climbed Grappa from a harder side ), Nibali only finishing 40 seconds behind in GC after being down 3:40 after stage 15
2018: Yates collapse and Froome rising from dead
2019: Roglic came too hot and barely finished 3rd
2020: TGH and Hindley gaining minutes on everyone else in the final week
2021: Bernal struggling in the final 3 mountain stages after dominating the first 16 stages

 

[Red Rick]

Although the overall win never looked like majorly threatened, this is yet another case of final few mountain stages completely turning the pecking order in the Giro.
2015: Contador cracked on Finestre
2016: Madness throughout the final week, Kruiswijk crashes and gets injured, Chavez also fades, Nibali rises from dead
2017: Dumoulin looked very weak in the final week ( I still think he would have lost the Giro had they climbed Grappa from a harder side ), Nibali only finishing 40 seconds behind in GC after being down 3:40 after stage 15
2018: Yates collapse and Froome rising from dead
2019: Roglic came too hot and barely finished 3rd
2020: TGH and Hindley gaining minutes on everyone else in the final week
2021: Bernal struggling in the final 3 mountain stages after dominating the first 16 stages

In 2014 Quintana didn't exactly look super hot in the first ~2 weeks either

 

[Forever The Best]

In 2014 Quintana didn't exactly look super hot in the first ~2 weeks either

True that, Quintana looked like he came a bit undercooked but he was the strongest in week 3 by some margin. Pozzovivo looked very strong but started to fade by Plan di Montecampione. Aru came really strong to take third while Uran was inconsistent and Evans completely cracked after looking good for the first half.