Egan Bernal is the first South American to win the Tour de France
Hi there, great to have you with us for episode 182 of Plain English, the best podcast for learning English. All the learning resources for this episode can be found at PlainEnglish.com/182. The producer of the show is JR; I’m Jeff; and you are part of the best audience in the world.
On today’s program: He trailed for 18 of the 21 stages, but in the 19th stage, 22-year-old Egan Bernal took the lead in the Tour de France on the highest paved route in the Alps. With an assist from Mother Nature, that was all he needed to capture the yellow jersey. Later on in the program, we’ll talk about the English phrase “to make a push” and I’ll have a cycling-related quote for you.
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First Tour de France victory for Colombia
Twenty-two-year-old Egan Bernal from the small Colombian town of Zipaquirá is the first Latin American to win the Tour de France and the youngest to do so in 110 years. He trained outside Bogotá and developed his climbing skills in the Andes mountains.
Bernal did not emerge at the head of the pack until late in the race. In the nineteenth stage out of twenty-one, he saw an opportunity to make a push for the lead on a steep climb up the highest paved route in the Alps. A minute and 30 seconds separated him from the leader at the time, Julian Alaphillippe of France. By the time he reached the peak of Col de l’Iseran, which is 9,000 feet, or 2,700 meters, above sea level, he was leading by 45 seconds. The long descent would have been Alaphillippe’s chance to make up some ground against the Colombian, but an avalanche blocked the path and the race was shortened for the day. By that point, all Bernal had to do was hold his lead for one more competitive stage, which he did, becoming the first Colombian to take the famous yellow jersey home to the Andes.
His hometown of Zipaquirá gave him a hero’s welcome. The modest Bernal turned down an offer of a parade, opting instead for a festival in the town square. Thousands of people came out to cheer on their national hero, many of them lining up as early as 5:00 a.m. On stage, Bernal thanked his coach, Fabio Rodriguez, to whom he donated his white jersey, which he won for being the best young rider on the Tour. He donated his yellow jersey to the Colombian Cycling Federation.
Zipaquirá is the hometown of another famous Colombian cyclist, Efraín Forero, who won the first Vuelta a Colombia bicycle race in 1975.
The Tour de France is the world’s most prestigious bicycle race and was first organized in 1903. It consists of 21 day-long stages and takes place over 23 days. The tradition is that the leader in every stage wears a yellow jersey for that stage; the yellow jersey can change hands multiple times during the race. But the overall winner takes the yellow jersey home. Bernal wore the yellow jersey for only the final two stages, but the final one is the one that counts.
The tour route changes every year, and this year’s route was 2,162 miles (or 3,480 kilometers), starting in Brussels, extending down the western half of France, crossing the Pyrenees mountains and then Alps on its loop back toward Italy. The final ceremonial stage always features the competitors cycling into central Paris. This year, 176 riders from 22 teams competed.
Bernal started riding on a secondhand bike at the age of five, and soon thereafter started entering races. He began racing mountain bikes formally at the age of 14, with dreams of making the Olympics in 2016. But he got an offer to switch to road racing, and soon he was on Team Sky, now called Ineos, one of the most prestigious road-racing teams in the world.
The road to the Tour de France was not easy for Bernal this year: in fact, it’s a bit of a miracle that he competed at all. In the past year alone, he fell three times and needed surgery on his collarbone, cheekbone, jaw, and nose. In May, during his training for the Giro d’Italia, he had another accident and was unable to move for weeks. That was in May! The Tour de France started on July 6!
What a competitor, and a good face for the sport of cycling. Cycling, as you know, suffered years in which almost every prominent athlete was implicated in a doping scandal—so much so that any competitor, rightly or wrongly, was immediately suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs. That unfortunate legacy is mostly in the past now. Bernal’s teammate and 2018 tour winner Geraint Thomas said that cycling is one of the cleanest sports around due to strict on-site drug testing during races.
If I couldn’t move for weeks in May, I would not be on a bike at 9,000 feet above sea level in July, I can tell you that much.
Time to say hello to some listeners. First up, 17-year-old Jonathan from Sweden is listening and practicing to improve at school. I think I mentioned this before, but I love hearing from people who are, shall we say, on the edges of the age brackets. I’m so jealous of our younger listeners who are getting such an early start on their second language, and I’m inspired by those who are working on English later in life, too. On that point, you might be curious about the average age of our listeners, so I checked Google Analytics for the web page, and here’s what I found. 46 percent of you are between 25 and 34; another 23 percent are between 35 and 44. That’s our sweet spot of listeners, but about 10 percent of you are younger than 25 and five percent are older than 65. Age is just a number, right! And speaking of demographics, the audience is 56 percent male. Anyway, thanks Jonathan for being part of the 10 percent and representing the younger cohort of listeners.
I also want to say hi to Tapas from Kolkata, India; Kitty from Taiwan; and Leonardo from Peru. Leonardo enjoyed the episode on happiness and asked me for one thing that made me happy in the previous day. I told him two things, but one of them was that I think I successfully brought a plant back to life. Sometimes it’s the simple things, right?
Related: How to measure happiness (and how to improve it)
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