Former Tour de France champion Egan Bernal has won his first race since his life-threatening crash in 2022.
Bernal, 28, of the British Ineos Grenadiers team, won the national individual time-trial championships in his native Colombia, beating Walter Vargas by seven seconds and Ineos team-mate Brandon Smith Rivera by 29 seconds.
Bernal was left fighting for this life following a training crash on a time-trial bike near Colombia’s capital Bogota in January 2022. He needed spinal surgery and other procedures after he sustained back, leg, knee and chest injuries.
He said at the time, while recovering: “Having had a 95% chance of becoming a paraplegic and nearly losing my life doing what I love to do most, today I want to thank God.”
Bernal was travelling at speeds of more than 50km/h when he collided with a stationary bus, in a year during which several riders suffered training accidents on time-trial bikes on public roads.
One of Ineos’ lead riders for general classification victories and a popular member of the pro-peloton, Bernal won the 2019 Tour de France at just 22, hinting at the beginning of another era of dominance by the seven-time winners formerly known as Team Sky.
However, having abandoned the Tour in 2020 with a back injury, Bernal’s only other Grand Tour victory to date was at the 2021 Giro d’Italia.
