Egan Bernal: “I could have died, I don’t know how I lived”

Today is the 365th day since his serious accident Egan Bernal (Ineos), winner of the Giro d’Italia in 2021. The Colombian was training on January 25, 2021 on a road near Bogotá when he collided with a bus that suddenly stopped to drop off a passenger.

I’m pedaling 60 kilometers per hour After the coup, he had to be taken to the hospital for “polytrauma”, which includes cervical and thoracic trauma, closed chest trauma, musculoskeletal trauma, and lower limb trauma.

Recovery is slow, complicated, difficult, but Bernal never gave up. “It’s been a very difficult year, with a lot of work, quiet work. Learning to walk is very complicated, even eating or learning to wash my mouth, take a bath, are the first things that are needed I learned and a few months passed. . Yes That’s why it took so long, imagine that you are at the level of competing with a big squad”, he was honest in the interview with Eurosport.

Lead a team or win a Tour de France These are aspirations that have gone to the background. “When I woke up from surgery, getting back on my bike was the last thing on my mind. After being told I almost died, with the possibility of being in a wheelchair, that was the last thing on my mind. All I wanted to do was live, have a normal life and be with my family,” he added when asked about his first diagnosis.

However, the illusion of being a cyclist again soon appeared. “In the early days maybe. I moved my legs, I started to do a bit of rehabilitation when I was in the ICU, I told my mom to help me move my leg and at that moment I said: why not.”

“I COULD DIE”

the mind of Egan You want to “pause” any negative thoughts. “On an emotional level, I lived very well, I assimilated it well. The fall was very strong, it changed my life, but I am alive, I can die, I will go beyond 60 kilometers per hour and I hit a standing bus. From walking 60km until I was thrown to the ground, I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I felt pain all over”.

“Instead of thinking about what happened and how, I thought: I’m alive. If I feel pain it’s because I’m alive, I’d rather feel pain than feel nothing. It’s incubated by the lung and it hurts every time I breathe. , but at least. I felt it. I tried to get something positive out of every moment, I had my mom, my little brother, my dad, my friends…”, she confesses Bernal.

He is grateful to life for what we can say is a new opportunity. “I have changed a lot, it doesn’t mean that I have lost the desire to win, I have a lot, I want to be the best, I wake up every morning thinking about that, but I am aware that if I don’t, nothing will happen. I have my family, I have my dog ​​​​​​​​in my house, who will wait for me with the same joy if I won or not in San Juan. I’m just grateful to be able to say this, I want to serve as an experience”.

OTHER 2023

Time passed Egan Bernal enjoy your sport more. “I have no disappointment watching my colleagues, not at all. Sometimes you close yourself to this world and think that there is nothing more than cycling, but for me it is not like that. In 2019 I thought it was the Tour or nothing, If I don’t win it seems like the world will end but it’s not. Our life is normal, like all of you, it’s obviously an important part of our life, we’re professionals, but more than that, you have a mother or father waiting to you at home and that is worth more than a Tour de France“.

A Tour is exactly what the cyclist wants to go to this year. “I would like to go, be at a competitive level and try to do my best, know how far I can go. I would like to do well, that’s why I get up every morning.”

“When I saw vingegaard win at Tour I was happy for him, I didn’t feel disappointed to see my teammates, everyone was experiencing their own things and there was no time for that. I’m going to try to do my best, I’m a professional, but if there’s someone better, if he’s Remco or Pogacar, who is the best in the world, because it is what it is. Now I want to inspire people who are going through bad times like I did, I want them to see that those moments can happen if one sets their mind to it,” said Egan.