Team Sky have won eight Grand Tours with three different riders since 2012, and now Colombian climbing prodigy Egan Bernal is poised to be the latest leader on the team's never-ending podium quest. In just his second year with the British outfit, 22-year-old Bernal has seized the opportunity and accepted responsibility for leading the world's top Grand Tour team at the 2019 Giro d'Italia.
Although his ascent through the team's ranks seems quick, Bernal has been pointed towards this day since he pulled on Team Sky's colours for the first time at last year's Tour Down Under, where he was given leadership in his first race with the team. He finished sixth overall in Australia, before flying home home to Colombia and winning the national time trial title and the inaugural Colombia Oro y Paz.
After finishing second at the Tour de Romandie and winning the Tour of California, he was fast-tracked into a Tour de France debut, and he shone in helping Geraint Thomas to overall victory and finishing 15th himself. The second half of the season was complicated by a crash at the Clasica San Sebastián that left him in hospital for several days but he returned to finish 12th at Il Lombardia.
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Bernal's second season with Team Sky has begun at a much slower pace. He skipped the trip to Australia this year and remained at home in Colombia, where he hosted Chris Froome and teammates Tao Geoghegan Hart and Gianni Moscon at an informal training camp ahead of the Tour Colombia 2.1.
Things went to plan for Team Sky in Colombia until the decisive fifth stage, when a dangerous breakaway escaped that included multiple GC threats, including eventual overall winner Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana). Fellow young Colombian Ivan Sosa made it into the move for Team Sky, but the team's failure to pull back the breakaway by the finish cost Bernal 42 seconds. Team Sky sports director Oli Cookson explained that the race, with the guidance of four-time Tour de France champion Froome, was a learning experience for Bernal and his young teammates, and he will surely store that stage in his memory banks when dangerous moves go in the future.
On the final day, Bernal turned loyal teammate and super domestique, falling back to help Sosa on the summit finish to Alto las Palmas. But López could not be beaten, and the Sky duo had to settle for second and fourth overall.
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