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.

This article was published by Rouleur in September 2025. You can read it here.