Egan Bernal: Tour de France challenge could be complicated for Team Ineos

Bernal anticipates that there could be plenty to manage as the Tour de France comes on the horizon in the summer, but he is not distracting himself with any speculation.

Talking to El Pais, he said: “Speaking now, it’s very easy to say ‘no, there will be no problem, everything will be quiet, blah, blah, blah’, and maybe things will get complicated on the road. But at this moment there is no point in thinking and killing my head about it."

As well as Bernal, there are a host of potential winners of the 2020 Tour at Team Ineos, including new signing Richard Carapaz, who joined from Movistar. Geraint Thomas will be a co-leader, and Chris Froome could yet meet the deadline to prove his fitness and secure inclusion in the eight-strong squad.

David Brailsford, the Ineos team leader, will let the ultimate team leader emerge during the Tour.

Bernal is unsure at how events will unfold, admitting: “I think it’s a very good question, and even I don’t know the answer right now.

“Dave [Brailsford] is very, very intelligent, and knows how to organise things very well so that everyone feels happy about how we will go to the Tour.

“Once we are on the Tour, as long as they protect us through the flat stages, once the mountain arrives, with a rider like Thomas, or Froomey, and I really mean it, it is relatively easy to communicate. And the Tour is so hard that you cannot pretend when it is going well or when it is going wrong.”

The young rider knows that with the determined and clinical approach that Ineos takes into Tours, there will be no room for sentiment once a leader becomes clear.

“If one of us is stronger than the other they will see and the team will have to make a decision [he snaps his fingers] because they will not let the Tour escape. At this moment, I see that I will have two very good team-mates, each have won the Tour, and they deserve all the respect in the world, just as I deserve it too.

“That’s motivation to train even hard and to say to myself ‘I’m going to win that position [of leader] in the team’. And if one of them is stronger, it will be difficult, but I will have to accept it and, perhaps, I will have to help them if they are stronger. And I think that they should be thinking that way too.”

The Giro d'Italia's move forward in the season, to accommodate the Olympics in Tokyo this summer, have complicated his plans. Bernal will now focus on the Tour and could instead focus his attention on the Giro next year.

“I was dead after the Tour. We prefer to be calm, I have many years ahead, the Giro is a race that I like too much. I was living [in Italy] for two years, and it’s in my head to do it, but I understand the team."