Nat Bromhead
Specialists and Team Ineos Grenadiers staff have given an update on Egan Bernal’s condition after the dual Gran Tour winner crashed during a training ride earlier in the week.
Bernal, who was training on a TT bike along with fellow Ineos riders, suffered a fractured vertebra, a broken leg and patella. He also suffered a punctured lung and fractured a number of ribs after the high-speed impact with the back of a stationary bus.
Close confidants of Bernal issued a letter saying “At this moment Egan is already awake and is being treated in the intensive care unit where they will care for him depending on how he responds to the surgeries and different interventions,” the letter said.
Earlier: 2019 Tour de France winner Egan Bernal has been seriously injured in a training accident in his home country of Colombia.
Images shared on Twitter show 25yo Bernal laying on the roadway, surrounded by teammates, alongside a heavily dented bus.
Team Ineos Grenadiers said Bernal was riding a training camp near his hometown and was accompanied to hospital by Team medical staff. They said he was conscious upon arrival.
A short time later the hospital issued a statement which read –
“At that moment, he was examined across the board by specialists. In light of the findings, he must undergo surgery in the coming hours due to multiple injuries: vertebral and thoracic trauma, blunt trauma of the thorax, musculoskeletal trauma, and trauma to the lower limbs. For the moment he is haemodynamically stable. We hope for the best in his clinical outcome.”
The local transport authority later issued a statement further explaining the incident.
“Today, Ineos were training with our athlete Egan Bernal, and they came across a bus parked on the verge on the right-hand side. Unfortunately, our cyclist did not see it and collided with it.”
Bernal had been earmarked as the team’s lead rider for the 2022 Tour de France. That is now under a cloud as we await further news about his injuries and recovery timeline.
More to come.
