Bernal to ride Clasica San Sebastian after string of Tour de France criteriums

01.08.2019 16:00

Team Ineos have confirmed that Tour de France winner Egan Bernal will ride the Clásica San Sebastián WorldTour race on Saturday before he heads home to Colombia for official celebrations of him becoming the first ever Colombian Tour de France winner. Bernal will have support from Wout Poels, Ivan Sosa, Jonathan Castroviejo, Eddie Dunbar, Kenny Elissonde and David De la Cruz.

Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Mikel Landa (Movistar) and Adam and Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) will all head to the Basque Country for the hilly one-day race.

Bernal crashed out of the 2018 Clásica San Sebastián, suffering a serious facial trauma and a blow to the head which kept him out of action for two months.

It is unclear if Bernal can fight for victory at the Clásica San Sebastián. He has raced every day since winning the Tour de France in Paris on Sunday and won the Criterium de Acht van Chaam in the Netherlands on Wednesday night.

Post-Tour de France criteriums are more like exhibition matches than real races, with reports suggesting Bernal is collecting a fee of around 50,000 Euro for each appearance. Bernal has been racing with Team Ineos teammate Jonathan Castroviejo, along with other selected riders.

He finished second behind Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep) in Aalst near Belgium on Monday night, then won the Roeselare criterium on Tuesday night, winning alone ahead of Thomas De Gendt and Dylan Teuns. He crossed the Belgian border in the Netherlands on Wednesday to ride in Chaam, historically one of the most prestigious post-Tour de France criteriums.

Bernal ‘won’ the Criterium de Acht van Chaam in a two-up sprint, beating Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma), who finished third overall in the Tour de France. Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv) won the women’s race.