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Egan Bernal (r.): "I don't think the podium is still an option"
Photo: KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP
"The other drivers were stronger than me and I have to accept that," said Egan Bernal.
A sentence so simply formulated and so difficult to pronounce - at least for a Tour de France winner from the Ineos team.
Bernal was actually there to defend his title, and the starting number one is on his back every day.
But after the 15th stage it is already clear: For the first time since 2014, no Ineos driver will wear the yellow jersey to Paris.
The decision was made in the Jura mountains on the Grand Colombier.
The Jumbo-Visma team and overall leader Primoz Roglic dashed into the last climb.
Egan Bernal couldn't keep up with 13 kilometers to go, fell back and in the end lost more than seven minutes to Roglic.
He will not be able to catch up in the Alps, where the tour is on its first stage on today's 16th stage.
"I don't think the podium is still an option," said Bernal.
And so the Ineos media department put helper Michal Kwiatkowski in front of the camera on Monday, the rest day.
The Pole had to explain that there are still many opportunities for stage wins.
Such tones have never been heard from Ineos on the tour.
Between 2012 and 2019, the team, formerly called Team Sky, won the Tour of France seven times.
The Sky and Ineos Empire seemed unbeatable in its dominance.
Exemptions for drugs and Frome's positive salbutamol test in 2017 caused a bad image, but not penalties or even exclusion from the tour.
Only in 2014 Froome had to give up after two falls on the fifth stage.
Everything on Bernal
This year the reasons for Ineo's Tour defeat are many and varied.
But the origin of the Ineos crisis lies in an injury to Froome.
The four-time Tour winner fell so badly last year that he could not compete for the Tour of France in 2019.
The 35-year-old is still struggling with the aftermath and was therefore not nominated for the tour.
Geraint Thomas, Tour winner 2018, also didn't seem in shape to attack the podium this year.
And so Ineos boss Dave Brailsford renounced two former captains and put everything on the 23-year-old Egan Bernal.
The Colombian may be a huge talent, but this year he experienced the pressure of having to defend the yellow jersey for the first time.
Bernal was not alone last year, when he drove as co-captain of the experienced Thomas.
It was only shortly before the end of the tour that Bernal put on the Maillot Jaune and carried it onto the Champs-Élysées.
Inevitably, Brailsford's driver selection came under criticism.
Thomas, as Bernal's experienced noble helper, might have given him more support.
But Thomas recently claimed a captaincy.
"That's why I didn't want to take on another role for the tour," he told the "Gazzetta dello Sport".
His second place on the one-week Tirreno-Adriatico tour on Monday showed that he would have been in the form of a helper.
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Richard Carapaz attacks at Puy Mary - Egan Bernal cannot follow
Photo:
Jan De Meuleneir / imago images / Panoramic International
Instead, Bernal now has domestics by his side that cannot keep up with the new Jumbo Visma train.
Kwiatkowski and Jonathan Castroviejo have been reliable over the past few years but don't seem to be in shape.
Top talent Pavel Sivakov fell so badly early in the tour that he still has to recover from it.
And the supposed noble helper Richard Carapaz, after all giro winner 2019, does not yet harmonize with Bernal.
Carapaz attacked as a template for Bernal at Puy Mary, although he was obviously not able to follow him.
Where's Plan B?
In the past few years, Ineos was prepared to control the race from the front, set the pace on the mountains and sort out competitors according to watt values.
Jumbo-Visma has now taken on this role - and Ineos seems to be missing a good plan B.
"We need really tough stages for Egan to make a difference," Ineos sports director Gabriel Rasch said a few days ago.
Bernal should stay in the game until the last week of the tour in the Alps.
Its advantages over the competition lie on the long climbs over 2000 meters.
But on the lower and more toxic climbs in the Pyrenees and Jura, Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar drove faster and more explosively.
As a result, the lead is now too big to catch up.
Maybe Ineos underestimated the competition.
It would be too easy to say that this would not have happened to Nicolas Portal, the sports director who suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of 40 in March.
Ineos has too many experienced people for that.
But Portal led Ineos to six Tour victories, he was obsessed with details and had a very good rapport with the drivers.
He could feel the mood in the team.
That is why "cyclingnews" once wrote that the portal was Ineo's "guiding star".
Its absence is not the only reason for Ineos' crisis, but also one of the reasons.
Nonetheless, one should also consider the outstanding performance of Roglic, his team Jumbo-Visma and competitor Pogacar.
They presented the weakened Ineos with an extremely difficult task.
In the coming year, however, things could look different again if Ineos might start with a fit Thomas and a better-practiced duo Carapaz-Bernal.
The British have already announced an important transfer.
Adam Yates then strengthens the team, he should also support Bernal.
This year, however, Yates has worn the yellow jersey more often than Bernal.
Yates was on four stages with the Maillot Jaune.
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