Egan Bernal pulls out of Criterium du Dauphine to protect back injury ahead of Tour de France

Egan Bernal, Team Ineos’s 2019 yellow jersey winner, has been forced to abandon a key warm-up race just two weeks before the Tour de France.

Bernal, 23, did not start stage four of the Criterium du Dauphine from Ugine to Megeve on Saturday and team-mate Geraint Thomas revealed that he was suffering from a “bad back”.

The Welshman added that Bernal’s decision to quit a race in which he was running in seventh place, 31 seconds behind leader Primoz Roglic, of Jumbo-Visma, was purely precautionary.

“I don’t think it’s a major issue but better to be cautious,” Thomas said. “[Bernal’s] had two races before. He’s got the racing he needs and it’s just about making sure everything is 100 per cent and there are no issues.”

Team Ineos will be praying it is no more than a minor issue. With Chris Froome and Thomas, their two other Tour winners, still some way off their best, the last thing they need is an injury to their one in-form leader.

In the build-up to this year’s delayed Tour, Jumbo-Visma – who pushed Ineos close last year – have confirmed themselves as a serious threat again, with Roglic clearly the strongest general classification rider in the world at the moment. The Slovenian comfortably held on to the lead of the Dauphine on the penultimate day of racing on Saturday, despite falling early in the stage.

Lennard Kämna [Bora-Hansgrohe] eventually took a solo win on stage four after attacking the breakaway in the final 3km, beating David De La Cruz (UAE Team Emirates) to the line by 41 seconds. Roglic finished 10th, and is now 14 seconds clear of Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) in the overall standings.

The stage took a heavy toll on the GC group with Bernal abandoning before the start, and Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) pulling up during the stage.

Froome and Thomas, who have been working as domestiques this week, both find themselves well down on GC. “It’s been a tough start,” Thomas admitted before Saturday’s stage. “The numbers are good, I just need to chip off another kilo or so and I’ll be perfect.”

Meanwhile, the sport suffered another horrific crash on Saturday with Belgian sensation Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep) tumbling over the barriers and into a ravine during the final 50km of racing at the Tour of Lombardy, the second monument of the season.

Evenepoel, one of the sport’s most exciting young talents, had been among the leaders at the time of the crash. Medical teams were quickly on the scene, with the race organisers saying that he was conscious.

The crash comes just two weeks after Evenepoel’s Deceuninck-QuickStep team-mate Fabio Jakobsen suffered a terrifying high-speed crash at the Tour of Poland. The Dutch rider had to be placed in an induced coma, undergoing over five hours of surgery to his face.

Evenepoel went on to win that race, dedicating his victory to Jakobsen who has since been transferred to hospital in his native Holland to continue his recovery.

Danish rider Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) won the Tour of Lombardy.