2019 Tour de France

Lore & Background

The 2019 Tour carried the weight of expectation on Team Sky's shoulders. Geraint Thomas, the 2018 champion, was the natural favourite, but it was his young Colombian teammate Egan Bernal who turned the race on its head. Bernal had already announced himself on the WorldTour with a Giro d'Italia title earlier that year, and in the high Alps he found a second wind that separated him from the field in the most decisive way.

The defining moment came on Stage 16 to La Toussuire, where the new Col de la Loze climb offered a brutal, sustained gradient. Bernal launched a solo attack that stretched the race apart, gaining crucial time over Thomas and the chasing pack. The stage became a masterclass in controlled aggression, and by the time the peloton rolled into the finish, the yellow jersey had changed hands for the last time.

The race's darker chapter arrived the following day. Stage 17, a Pyrenean mountain stage, was called off after a six-year-old girl, Eléonore, was struck and killed by a vehicle near the route. The cancellation sent shockwaves through the peloton and the cycling world, and the race resumed with one fewer stage. The incident raised urgent questions about spectator safety and the logistics of routing a mass-participation race through mountain communities, debates that continue to this day.

In Their Own Story

The air above the Col de la Loze tasted of iron and altitude. Bernal felt the gradient bite into his calves as the peloton thinned to a thread of ten, then five, then three. Below, the valley was a smear of green and gold, the July sun hammering the limestone. He looked back once—Thomas was there, breathing hard, the yellow jersey a small flame in the distance. Bernal dropped his head, found the rhythm, and let the road take him. By the time he crested the final switchback, the finish line was a ribbon of colour and the crowd was a single, roaring voice. He crossed it alone, arms wide, and the yellow was his.

Reader's Guide

The 2019 Tour de France will be remembered as the edition where a young Colombian rider turned a team project into a personal coronation. The race opened in Brussels with its characteristic cobbled prologue and flat stages, where Bernal and Thomas sat in the yellow jersey's orbit while sprinters and breakaway artists stole the early glory. The GC picture sharpened in the Pyrenees, but the true war was fought in the Alps.

Stage 16 to La Toussuire, featuring the newly introduced Col de la Loze, became the race's hinge. Bernal attacked with surgical precision, gaining time on Thomas and Roglič in a single, sustained surge that left the chasing group gapped and the yellow jersey permanently in his grasp. The stage was a statement: this was not a teammate's Tour, it was his.

Then came the tragedy. Stage 17 was cancelled after the death of young spectator Eléonore, and the peloton rode on with a heavy silence. The remaining stages saw Bernal managing his lead with the composure of a rider far beyond his years, while Thomas, stripped of the yellow, still finished second in a performance that underlined the depth of the Sky squad. Roglič, in third, confirmed his status as the race's most dangerous outsider. The final stage on the Champs-Élysées was a sprinter's theatre, but all eyes were on the yellow jersey as it crossed the line for the last time, worn by a 22-year-old who had just etched his name into the Tour's pantheon.

Did You Know?

• The Col de la Loze, featured on the decisive Stage 16, made its Tour de France debut in 2019, adding a new alpine climb to the race's repertoire.
• Egan Bernal's 2019 victory made him the youngest Tour winner since Marco Pantani in 1998, a gap of 21 years.
• Stage 17 was cancelled after the death of a six-year-old spectator, reducing the race from 21 to 20 stages and prompting renewed debate over race-route safety near residential areas.
• Both the winner (Bernal) and the runner-up (Thomas) rode for Team Sky, marking one of the few modern Tours where a single team occupied the top two GC positions.