19 Jun 2019

Bernal excited for mountain test

Related riders

Egan Bernal

Egan Bernal is excited to tackle the stage six summit finish at the Tour de Suisse after safely coming through the first five days of the race.

The Colombian has not raced in the mountains since March’s Volta a Catalunya and is relishing the opportunity to test himself on tomorrow’s final hors categorie climb to Flumserberg.

The eight-kilometre climb - with an average gradient of nearly 10% - will shake up the race’s general classification with a number of sprinters holding the current top spots in Switzerland. Elia Viviani (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) took stage five in Einsiedeln, ahead of current race leader Peter Sagan (Bora-hangrohe), but that looks like being the last chance for the fast men this week as the climbers take centre stage.

Egan Bernal

I’ve been feeling good in training but the race is always different.

Speaking to TeamINEOS.com, Bernal said: “I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. It will be my first mountain stage for a long time. I’m excited.

“I don’t know exactly what to expect. I will just do my best and I don’t know what the result will be. I’ve been feeling good in training but the race is always different.

“The big goal is the Tour so this race is hard training for that but I hope to go full gas tomorrow.”

Bernal performed strongly in the race’s opening time trial and has been marshalled well in the following sprint stages by Luke Rowe, Owain Doull and Ben Swift.

“Today I felt good,” he continued. “The team did a really good job keeping me at the front of the race all day. I saved a lot of energy.”

Current standings:

1. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) 15:55:48
2. Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) +14"
3. Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) +21"
4. Rohan Dennis (Bahrain Merida) +22"
5. Lawson Craddock (EF Education First) +27"
8. Jonathan Castroviejo (Team INEOS) +40"
13. Egan Bernal (Team INEOS) +45"