2025 La Vuelta a España Stage 16 REACTION: From terrible injury to amazing stage win! ❤️

The Breakaway team react after La Vuelta stage 16 is cut short.

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Amidst all the difficulty and uncertainty, the sporting headline at least is that Egan Bernal is a winner on the international stage once again. More than four years since he last had a win. Incidentally, that was at another grand tour at the Juralia. Today, Adam Egan Bernal is once again a world tour winner. He is fantastic to see as well. I think for Egan, everyone that follows cycle will know his story that the man is lucky to be alive, never mind racing his bike again. So to see him in this position at the front end of the bike race on such a hard day and after everything he’s been through, everyone’s going to be cheering for him. Everyone’s going to be clapping his hands for him. And also the man he was with Nico Lander as well. Everyone loves a bit of land. And that guy broke his back day one at the start of the Jirro and he’s back up there with Yeah. Egano also broke his back. I mean it’s like the I’m not going to say it. the two old boys that have like toilet. Yeah, but they’ve got plenty of experience between them, don’t they? And plenty of disappointment as well. Remind us, Matt, for anyone who’s slightly newer to cycling about the journey that Egan Bernal has been on to get here from winning the tour to France of course to a near-death experience really. Yeah. Winning the tour, winning the duro as well. and he was in his home country of Colombia on a on a training ride and somehow ended up crashing into the back of a stationary bus I think it was nearly died. Um severe fractures to his spine ribs um and it was months before the lad could walk again and and there was a lot of people who didn’t think that he would ever ever walk. So he was in a wheelchair then somehow that the team team showed so much faith in him as well. But all he’s done after two very difficult years is just chip away and just been this kind of oasis of calm whilst this slow gradual fight back. And we’ve seen glimpses of brilliant this year of the duro. We we’ve seen glimpses just a couple of days ago is in that break. He says he’s putting out the best numbers than ever. And for about a year, two years, his I think I can’t remember which leg it was, but it was 20% less power in one leg than the other. And he was still competing at world tour level. And they did think his coaches, the doctors, that that would never come back. So, I honestly couldn’t be happier. It’s a shame the shine was taken off because of the circumstances, but thank goodness we did have a finish. Everybody was safe, but I think the whole cycling world will be so happy to see Benal at the top step of a podium. It was absolutely wonderful. Yeah, and I do think it’s worth dwelling on that just a little moment longer because I’m quite certain so many of the headlines around today’s stage will be focused on events away from the racing. Egan Bernal has earned the right for us to glorify this comeback really a little bit longer. The dignity and the grace with which he has conducted himself through what has been an horrific life experience has been I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. It has been humbling. He’s been a joy to witness, hasn’t he? He has been. Yeah. And I just thinking about him now in terms of where he started this year at as well. I think he broke his collarbone at the start of the season this year. He’s had a number of crashes since the big crash up until now. So, it’s not at all been playing s. You think all the times it been hit down and crashed and gone through all these problems that you think, God almighty, I just like this is too much. But he just keeps going, going, going. And it is fantastic to see and it’s brilliant to see. And I am so so happy for him. I think for Inos as well, you got to do the cap to that team because absolutely. Yeah, they’ve stood by him for a long time and he has been on a huge contract which I think I’m going to say a lot of teams would have scrapped if they could have and they’ve stood by him right until now and yes, it’s not a grand tour that he’s won. It’s a grand tour stage. So, I’m super chuffed for him and super chuff for the team, but yeah, it’s it’s good to see one of the good guys win. Yeah, and it’s it’s the second time that we’ve had a stage finished disrupted at this welter, but this time they have at least awarded the stage winner, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. And the organizers are facing incredible difficulty. I just want to let you know very briefly, you ask Vingo retains the lead. We’ll bring you the general classification once that is confirmed. But we did see him with a bit of a mechanical. Um, we do have our teams at what was supposed to be the finish line for the stage today. Anders has sent us along another report, so let’s hear from him. That was stage 16. Egan Bernal just won. We were watching the the big screen up here. A very bizarre situation. We got the news 10 minutes ago that the race and the time would be neutralized with AKs to go. We got some videos from the protesters out there. Uh the the situation why the riders were not able to uh to finish the stage and yeah very very surreal to be here. Over here we have a long time Sonia of Agon Bernal just had a applause and that’s really the the only atmosphere we are feeling right now. We have the finish line over here. We have photo photographers fans waiting but yet we don’t know if we will have the riders coming up. They most likely go directly to the buses. That’s what we hearing from the Sun buses are around 3 or 4Ks from the finish line. So yet again h a stage probably without Bernnal a stage winner on the podium. We would we need to to uh to see that but yeah very very weird day but guys happy they just shake their hand. So yeah stage win for his first ever international win since Italia 2021. Yeah, it is brilliant to see and we do hope that uh the organizers may stage a podium tomorrow morning so he gets his moment of celebration you would imagine. So just to give you a little bit of context as to why today’s stage finish was altered. This is the scene um some 6 km I think it is from the finish huge protest. We have seen significant protests throughout the course of this race and the organizers are in a very difficult position. you’ve got to say. Um it’s a very complex issue and it’s one that divides an awful lot of people and there will be people angry about uh today’s finish and saying that sport and politics should be separated. The reality is they are not in this particular situation and the organizers are having to deal with that and they’re trying to respect the rights of the protesters and also the safety of the riders. Um, for what it’s worth, they’re doing as good a job as they possibly can do, you would say. But the reality for the riders is if we’re looking at the logistics of today, for example, Matt, they’re nowhere near the team buses. They’ll have to make their way back to the team buses. They’ll make their way through the protesters. Um, and so it’s all just added difficulty for them, really, isn’t it? Yeah. I I guess if you’re a pragmatist, it’s the same for everybody. But you’re But you’re quite right. You’re totally right. Logistically, I I I think we should actually congratulate that the organization for actually getting us a result today. It would have been such a shame for the race just to separate um what’s going on outside the race. It would have been a shame, but they reconfigured very very quickly. They even got a finish line on the road and we were only made aware with about five or six to go. God knows when the riders were made aware, but we we still got a result. That’s important. But of primacy is the fact the riders are safe and yeah, it’s going to be a bit of a bit of an ordeal. It’s going to be a bit of a problem for them to get find all their team buses and stuff, but they got the team cars behind. They’ll have to wrap up and yeah, move on hopefully um for the next next couple of stages and deal with continued uncertainty because we simply do not know how the stages are going to go and even as the riders roll out, we do not know how the day will unfold. That as Matt says is something that all the riders are dealing with. Yonas Vingugo though, if you bring it back to the sporting element of it all, retains the red jersey. He retains this race lead. And we’ll be looking ahead to stage 17 as we expected to be in just a few moments.