Doctors didn’t initially tell Egan Bernal because his injury list counted multiple cases of severe trauma, but they told his family: he probably wouldn’t survive. He resisted, he proved them wrong. Doctors told Bernal after the first rounds of surgery that he was alive but he’d probably be paraplegic. 95% certain, they informed him. He resisted, he proved them wrong. Doctors told Bernal that though he had survived and had regained control of all his limbs, he probably wouldn’t ride a bike again. He counted 20 fractures, a broken femur, kneecap, two vertebrae and two punctured lungs. He had to learn how to clean his teeth, eat and walk again. He resisted, he proved them wrong.
His team, Ineos Grenadiers, gave him all the support he needed, and more, but they doubted he’d ever race his bike again, let alone be the same Bernal who won the Tour de France aged 22, and then two years later the Giro d’Italia. The Colombian smiled at them – he does a lot of that, smiling is his thing – and proved them wrong. Eight months after crashing head first into a bus on his time trial bike in his home country, Bernal was at the Tour of Denmark racing his bike. A miracle, most called it. Determination, proving people wrong, is what he termed it.
In his absence from the top of the sport, the gap he left – remember, we all thought he was set to dominate – was occupied by Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič. He’ll probably never directly challenge them again for Grand Tour titles, but that hasn’t stopped him. Why would it? He’s a cyclist, he’s a national hero, he's an inspiration. He returned to the Tour (twice), the Vuelta a España, and then the Giro again this year, finishing seventh on GC. Seventh after three weeks of racing, seventh after “I almost killed myself,” he reflected.
At the start of this season, having just turned 28, he won his first bike race since his crash: the Colombian National Time Trial Championships. “The message I want to give is: despite all the bad things that can happen to us, one can always overcome it and do something better. I’m proud to win again.” Inspiring words, said by a man who’s lived through trauma. Three days later, he did the double – he became national road race champion, too. “I thought about retiring a lot of times, but one day I promised that if I won again, I’d dedicate my victory first to God for giving me a second opportunity to live,” he wrote on social media.
Bernal has returned to the pointy-end of bike races in 2025. Image: Unipublic / Cxcling / Antonio Baixauli.
A few days ago, at the current Vuelta a España, sporting one of the coolest and chic national champion’s jersey for some time, Bernal seemingly dropped out of the GC race. It liberated him. He was in the break on stage 15, animating it and smiling, finishing sixth and jumping back up to 12th. A day after the rest day, up and over the lumpy roads of Galicia, he went five places better: he won.
It wasn’t the finish line photo he’d have dreamt of, a banner advertising slices of ham 8km from the actual finish line denoting the end of the stage due to protests against Israel-Premier Tech once again shortening the stage, but they are just footnotes to this Bernal fairytale. The history books will clearly, unambiguously read: 2025 Vuelta a España stage 16 winner – Egan Bernal. 1,324 days after he almost died aged 25.
Throughout it all, Bernal’s attitude has been infectious, heart-warming. Always happy, forever positive, eternally grateful. If he was lucky to survive his crash, there’s nothing lucky about him being a Grand Tour stage winner again. He’s worked immensely hard for it, put in the hours that most wouldn’t, and pushed his once damaged and battered body back to the physical limits it was once operating at. And always he’d done it with a beaming smile because he has been – and will continue to be – determined to make the most of this, his second chance, not just at cycling, but at life.
“When I have my own children and grandchildren,” he said a year after his injury, “I will tell them that Dad nearly died when he was 25 because he crashed into a bus. That way they can understand that even when things are bad, good things can happen.” Proof: the very best thing, Egan Bernal winning a stage of a Grand Tour again, has just happened. Proving people wrong, forever and ever. What an inspiration.
