'I wake up every day thinking I can be the best again' - Bernal dares to dream at Vuelta
Stage six of the 2025 Vuelta a España pushed Egan Bernal out of the top ten, but it didn’t take away his smile. On the first real mountain finish, high in Andorra, he reached the line with the main contenders. Fourteenth on the stage, he now sits eleventh overall, 2:55 behind new race leader Torstein Træen.
More telling than the numbers were his words afterwards. “I’m very happy to be back here, after a lot of effort and there is still a long way to go,” Bernal said to ESPN. “I think I want to do a good Vuelta, enjoy it, and show my family, and those who have accompanied me in these years, that the effort has been worth it.”
He couldn’t follow the accelerations of Jonas Vingegaard and Giulio Ciccone, but he held firm on João Almeida’s wheel, who eventually brought the Dane and the Italian back, reuniting the main contenders. That kept Bernal’s deficit to the favourites within reach: 22 seconds to Vingegaard, 14 to Almeida, 13 to Ciccone.
Where the margins are small, Bernal’s ambitions remain big. Ever since his horrifying crash in 2022, the Colombian has devoted everything to climbing back to his absolute peak. After finishing seventh in this year’s Giro d’Italia, his best Grand Tour result since the crash, he is now aiming to show in the Vuelta that the road back to the very top, to thoughts of overall victory, is still open.
“I’ve always said it, I don’t know if I’ll make it, but at least I wake up every day thinking I can be the best again,” Bernal continued. “To reach the moon you have to aim for the sun, so I keep dreaming.”
The Vuelta now continues towards Cerler in the Pyrenees, with stage 7 offering yet another summit finish. Another chance to see whether Bernal’s strength can rise to the height of his dreams and ambitions.
