PARIS (AP) — Egan Bernal has become the first Colombian to win the Tour de France as the three-week race ended with the 21st and final stage on the Champs-Elysees.

At 22, Bernal is the youngest Tour winner in the post-World War II era.

Bernal succeeded Ineos teammate Geraint Thomas as the British outfit posted a seventh Tour victory with a fourth different rider in eight years.

Thomas, a 33-year-old from Wales, had to settle for second place this year. Dutch rider Steven Kruijswijk completed the podium on Sunday. </s> One of cycling's most grueling races reaches its conclusion when Egan Bernal of Colombia crosses the finish line of the Tour de France in Paris after the 23-day event that began in Brussels.

Bernal, who will become the first Colombian to win the Tour, has the title locked down entering the largely ceremonial final stage of the race. Bernal first took hold of the yellow jersey after a weather-shortened Stage 19 on Friday saw Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe relinquish the coveted jersey after holding it for the majority of the race.

MORE: Tour de France 2019: What the colored jerseys mean

Last year's champion and Bernal's Team Ineos teammate Geraint Thomas will likely not provide any real competition to his teammate as Thomas' second-place spot on the podium is all but guaranteed.

This year's Tour de France has been one of the closest in recent memory and has been lead by Alaphilippe or Bernal for nearly the entire duration, two cyclists who have never won the yellow jersey before. At the age of 22, Bernal is also the youngest rider in the race.

Who won the Tour de France in 2019?

Egan Bernal won the 106th edition of the Tour de France. He is the first cyclist from Colombia to win the race and was the youngest rider in this year's race at just 22 years old. Last year's winner Geraint Thomas finished second - one minute and 11 seconds behind Bernal.

You can find a full list of classifications here.

Over a span of a little more than three weeks, riders endured a grueling course that includes seven mountain stages with five summit finishes, five hilly stages, seven flat stages and an individual and team time trial. Here are the winners of each stage throughout the race. </s> Egan Bernal has become the first-ever Colombian winner of the Tour de France at the 106th edition of the world’s most prestigious road cycling tournament which wrapped up on Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris.

On Sunday, the 22-year-old rider effectively sealed his title prior to the processional 128km stage starting from Rambouillet. He raised glasses of champagne with Ineos teammates for a celebration shortly on the stage after his win, reports Xinhua news agency.

“It’s incredible. I don’t know what to say. I’ve won the Tour but I don’t manage to believe it. I need a couple of days to process all this,” admitted Bernal, also the tournament’s youngest titlist in more a century.

Bernal gained the yellow jersey from Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe in a dramatic manner, as Friday’s stage 19 was brought to an early end due to hail storm and riders’ time was recorded at the summit of 2,770m-high Col d’Iseran. Bernal kept his overall lead enroute to the Champs-Elysees.

“This is the first Tour for us Colombians. Many Colombians have tried before. We’ve had great cyclists in the past. But I’m the first one to win the Tour. Colombia deserves it,” commented Bernal, who also won the white jersey for the best young rider.

Team Ineos, formerly Team Sky, made it seven wins out of eight years, following those of Bradley Wiggins in 2012, Chris Froome in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017, and Geraint Thomas in 2018.

Thomas finished runner-up, 1 minute and 11 seconds behind teammate Bernal. Dutch rider Steven Kruijswijk and Emanuel Buchmann of Germany were placed third and fourth respectively.

Alaphilippe, the yellow jersey owner for most days of this Tour, ranked fifth overall while winning the Combativity award.

Sunday’s finale was won by Australia’s Caleb Ewan, who claimed three stage victories in Tour debut.

155 of 176 starting riders managed to withstand challenges in the 23-day race.

Slovakia’s Peter Sagan won a record seventh sprint green jersey with 316 points, while the polka dot jersey representing the best climber belonged to French rider Romain Bardet with 86 points. Movistar sit atop the overall team standings in 248 hours 58 minutes and 15 seconds. </s> VAL THORENS, France — Perpetuating the tradition of great Colombian climbers, Egan Bernal left his mark on the Tour de France in the mountains. But unlike his flashy predecessors, he is also poised to win cycling’s biggest race. At just 22.

Bernal kept the yellow jersey Saturday after the last Alpine stage, and barring a crash or a last-minute health issue he will become the first Colombian to win the Tour when it ends on Paris’ Champs-Elysees with a largely processional stage on Sunday. Bernal will also become the youngest post-World War II winner of the Tour.

“Colombia always had great climbers,” Bernal said. “We won the Giro, the Vuelta, but it never happened before on the Tour. For many years we had great cyclists, we never managed to win. It did not work out on the Tour de France. Now we have it.”

Long before Bernal was born, Colombian riders like Lucho Herrera and Fabio Parra conquered the hearts of cycling fans with long and spectacular raids in the Tour mountains. But for all their brilliance, they never came close to winning the race. More recently, Nairo Quintana ended up runner-up twice behind Chris Froome but lacked the time trialing abilities required to overcome the British four-time champion.

This year’s route, the highest in the race history with five summit finishes—including three stages finishing above 2,000 meters and only 54 kilometers of time trialing—gave natural-born climber Bernal a golden opportunity.

Unlike Bradley Wiggins, Froome and Geraint Thomas—the three other riders who won the Tour for the British outfit Ineos — Bernal is not a race-against-the-clock specialist. He has built his success on consistent performances in the Pyrenees and a tremendous attack in the Alps after losing ground in the individual time trial.

“The talent is there to see, he was born to go uphill fast,” said Bernal’s teammate and now deposed champion Geraint Thomas. “He has got many, many great years in front of him. A very bright future.”

Thomas, lagging 1 minute and 11 seconds behind overall, should finish runner-up to give the Ineos team a 1-2 finish in Paris, like they did in 2012 when the squad was called Sky.

Weighing only 59 kilograms (130 pounds), the super-light Bernal thrived in rarefied air, and it was fitting that he delivered his fatal blow in the Col de l’Iseran, the Tour’s highest point this year at 2,770 meters.

A cycling star in the making, Bernal took the race lead Friday when Stage 19 was dramatically cut short by a landslide across the route to the Alpine ski station of Tignes and by a violent hailstorm that made road conditions too icy for riders racing on two wheels barely wider than their thumbs. He’d moved away from Julian Alaphilippe, the punchy rider from France who did more than anyone to make this Tour the most exciting in decades and held the race lead for 14 days, on a super-difficult climb to the Iseran. When the race was then stopped with Bernal racing away on the downhill, organizers decided the riders’ timings to the top of the Iseran climb would be used to determine the overall standings.

And that put Bernal in yellow.

He wrapped up his victory during Saturday’s Stage 20 to Val Thorens, won by 2014 champion Vincenzo Nibali. Shortened to just 59 kilometers (36 miles) because of landslide on the route, it featured a 33-kilometer climb up to the ski station that was too difficult for Alaphilippe, who cracked after starting the day in second place and allowed Steven Kruijswijk to secure a third-place finish overall.

The ascent to Val Thorens was certainly not as terrifying as the Pacho, a Colombian mountain Bernal uses as his training ground.

“It’s my favorite climb, a 23 kilometer-long ascent at 3,000 meters,” he said. “Every time before I travel to Europe, I go there and test myself. And to me, every time we face a long climb at the Tour, it’s like climbing Pacho. That climb really helped me. I’m gaining confidence when I climb it.”

On the road to Val Thorens, Bernal shook hands with Alaphilippe, who left his mark on the race with his unpredictable attacks and strategies. Throughout the race, Alaphilippe forced the teams of favorites to rethink their strategies as they tried to topple the unconventional Frenchman.

“I don’t think it was the parcours (race route), it was the fact that Alaphilippe started so strongly, had a good advantage and was so strong,” Thomas said. “It was incredible how he stepped up and improved. A big, big well done to him. He fought until the very end. Fair play to him and his team. That was the reason why the race was raced so differently.”

Ineos was not as dominant as in previous years and, in addition to Alaphilippe’s bold moves, had to deal with challenges mounted by Thibaut Pinot’s FDJ and Kruijswijk’s Jumbo Visma. With new dynamics, the race was filled with suspense until Pinot withdrew with a leg injury and Bernal stamped his authority for good in the Iseran.

If he wins, Bernal will achieve a feat unmatched by the Tour’s greatest champions — five-time winners Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain — who were all older when they first won.

Although he went through a bad day in the Pau time trial, Bernal has really improved his technique over the past two years to morph into an all-rounder, making many observers believe his reign could be a very long one.

“If you’re just a climber and can’t ride a time trial, you can’t win the Tour de France,” Bernal said. “I work on time trials a lot. I could have lost the Tour on this one.”

Bernal has also proved stronger than Thomas, who threw his weight behind the Colombian heading into the penultimate stage. Bernal and Thomas crossed together in Val Thorens, with the Welshman warmly congratulating his successor.

It has been a meteoric rise to the top for Bernal, who competed at his first Tour last summer and did an impressive job in support of Thomas and Froome.

With barely any experience in road racing, he turned pro with the small Androni Giocattoli Pro Continental team before Ineos manager Dave Brailsford signed him two years ago following his victory at the Tour de l’Avenir, the most prestigious stage race for Under-23 riders.

This season, Bernal was set to get a maiden leader experience at the Giro d’Italia. But he fractured his collarbone in a training crash, forcing him to miss the race and 76 days overall. He returned to competition in June to win the Tour de Suisse, another prestigious title to add to his success at Paris-Nice in March.

“All I know is if I had not crashed before the Giro I would not be in that position,” Bernal said. “After riding the Giro at (age) 22, it would have been impossible to recover and to be in this position at the Tour. Things happen for a reason.” </s> Bernal (centre) with the six team-mates who helped him win the race - GB's Luke Rowe was disqualified from the race on stage 17

Egan Bernal became the youngest rider in 110 years to win the Tour de France after Caleb Ewan won the traditional sprint finish in Paris.

With the race leader not challenged on the final stage, 22-year-old Bernal became the first Colombian winner.

He crossed the line in the peloton, hand-in-hand with his Ineos team-mate and last year's winner Geraint Thomas, who finished second this time.

"To finish second behind a team-mate makes it OK," said Welshman Thomas.

"Two years ago I had my arm in a sling with a broken collarbone watching Chris Froome win, wishing I was riding and I would've taken second then, but it just shows how time and expectations have moved on.

"Egan is the future and when I'm 45 and old and fat and sat in the pub watching him win a 10th Tour de France I can say I told him all I know."

Thomas went into the three-week race as joint leader with Bernal but his preparations had been disrupted when he crashed while travelling at around 50mph in the Tour de Suisse in June.

He had to abandon that week-long race and then he had three minor crashes during this year's Tour.

Thomas led Bernal for much of the race but his team-mate was stronger in the final week in the Alps, and ended up winning by one minute 11 seconds, with Dutch rider Steven Kruijswijk 20 seconds further adrift in third.

"Thanks to all my team and thank you G [Geraint Thomas] for giving me the opportunity," said Bernal. "I'm the happiest guy in the world. I have just won the Tour de France and I can't believe it."

Bernal's victory is the seventh in eight years for a British-based team, after Ineos took over the ownership of the Team Sky squad earlier this year.

Bradley Wiggins became the first British winner of the race in 2012, with Chris Froome triumphing in 2013 and then claiming three in succession from 2015 before Thomas took last year's title.

Bernal is just the third Colombian to win one of cycling's three Grand Tours. Nairo Quintana won the 2014 Giro d'Italia and 2016 Vuelta a Espana, while Luis Herera won the Vuelta in 1987.

How the final stage unfolded

Caleb Ewan's victory was his third stage win of the 2019 tour

A largely pedestrian 60km ride from Rambouillet to Paris saw Bernal and his Ineos team-mates sipping a celebratory glass of champagne.

As the riders entered the capital city, the race crossed the river Seine via Le Pont Neuf, close to the medieval cathedral of Notre-Dame - French television chose not to show the building that was ravaged by fire in April - before the riders swept through the grounds of the Louvre.

Last year's champion Thomas was given the honour of leading the peloton through the Place de la Concorde and up the cobbles of the Champs-Elysees for the first time.

The pace increased with the passing of each 7km lap, which saw the riders swing round the Arc de Triomphe before hurtling back down the Champs-Elysees at speeds approaching 50mph before heading off back towards the Louvre.

Julian Alaphilippe, who led the race for 14 days, giving French fans hope of first home win since 1985, led the peloton on to the Champs-Elysees for the final time, trying to set up a victory for his Deceuninck Quick Step team-mate Elia Viviani, however, the Italian was nowhere as Lotto Soudal rider Ewan proved quickest in Paris.

The Australian, who timed his charge to the line to perfection, edging out Dutch rider Dylan Groenewegen to win his third stage on his debut Tour, said: "It was quite messy I went down the right, I'd been told to avoid there and it is quite bumpy but luckily I had enough speed to come through at the end."

For Alaphilippe, who finished fifth overall, there was the consolation of being named the race's most combatitive rider, while his compatriot Romain Bardet claimed the polka dot King of the Mountains jersey.

Slovakia's three-time world champion Peter Sagan won the green points jersey for a record seventh time.

Why Bernal's victory is not a surprise

Bernal (right) was a key domestique for Thomas when he won his Tour title last year

The climbing specialist, who was born on 13 January, 1997 in Zipaquira in central Colombia at an altitude of 2,650m, showed his potential at last year's Tour, when he rode as a domestique to Thomas and four-time champion Chris Froome.

After pacing Thomas to victory on Alpe d'Huez and ultimately the overall title, Froome said: "He's got an amazing engine. You only have to look at what he did on Alpe d'Huez, for a 21-year-old, that's amazing.

"There is a lot in Egan that reminds me of myself when I was younger. It's great having him on the team and he brings a lot of young, new energy to the group."

He joined Team Sky for the 2018 season, after winning the prestigious Tour de l'Avenir - a stage race for under-23 riders that has seen many of its winners go on to Tour de France success.

He won the Tour Colombia and Tour of California last year before making his Tour de France debut as a domestique to Thomas and four-time winner Froome.

This year, three crashes helped Bernal arrive at the Tour as joint leader of the Ineos team, formerly Team Sky.

The first was his own, on a training ride in Andorra, and it ruled him out of May's Giro d'Italia, where he had been due to lead the team for the first time in a Grand Tour.

Froome's season-ending crash at June's Criterium du Dauphine then pushed Bernal up the Ineos pecking order for the Tour de France, while Thomas' spill at the Tour de Suisse later that month saw Bernal take over as the sole leader of that team and he went on to win the race.

After riding away from Thomas on the Tourmalet on stage 14 in the Pyrenees, he did so twice again in the Alps in the final week to position himself as Ineos' strongest rider at the Tour and secure his first Grand Tour win in only his second attempt.

Bernal is the third youngest winner of the Tour. The youngest is France's Henri Cornet, who was 19 when he was controversially awarded victory in the second edition of the race in 1904, while Luxembourg's Francois Faber was a few days younger than Bernal when he took the 1909 title.

Final general classification standings:

1. Egan Bernal (Col/Ineos) 82hrs 57mins 00secs

2. Geraint Thomas (GB/Ineos) +1min 11secs

3. Steven Kruijswijk (Ned/Jumbo-Visma) +1min 31secs

4. Emanuel Buchmann (Ger/Bora-Hansgrohe) +1min 56secs

5. Julian Alaphilippe (Fra/ Deceuninck-Quick Step) +3mins 45secs

6. Mikel Landa (Spa/Movistar) +4mins 23secs

7. Rigoberto Uran (Col/EF Education First) +5mins 15secs

8. Nairo Quintana (Col/Movistar) +5mins 30secs

9. Alejandro Valverde (Spa/Movistar) +6mins 12secs

10. Warren Barguil (Fra/Arkea-Samsic) +7mins 32secs

Stage 21 result:

1. Caleb Ewan (Aus/Lotto-Soudal)3hrs 04mins 08'secs

2. Dylan Groenewegen (Ned/Jumbo-Visma) Same time

3. Niccolo Bonifazio (Ita/Total Direct Energie)

4. Max Richeze (Arg/Deceuninck-Quick-Step)

5. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor/Dimension Data)

6. Andre Griepel (Ger/Arkea-Samsic)

7. Matteo Trentin (Ita/Mitchelton-Scott)

8. Jasper Stuyven (Bel/Trek-Segafredo)

9. Nikias Arndt (Ger/Sunweb)

10. Peter Sagan (Svk/Bora-hansgrohe) </s> PARIS (Reuters) - Egan Bernal became the first Colombian to win the Tour de France when he retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey after Sunday’s 21st and final stage won by Caleb Ewan of Australia.

The 22-year-old Bernal, the youngest rider to win the race in 110 years, gave Team Ineos — formerly Team Sky — their seventh title in the last eight editions.

He beat team mate and defending champion Geraint Thomas of Britain by 1:11, with Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk coming home third, 1:31 off the pace.

Also the winner of the white jersey for the best Under-25 rider, Bernal did not win a single stage, but he was first at the top of the Col de l’Iseran when the 19th stage was stopped because of hailstorms and landslides in the Alps.

Kruijswijk’s Jumbo-Visma team shone throughout the race, winning four stages through Dylan Groenewegen, Wout van Aert, Mike Teunissen and the team time trial.

Briton Adam Yates failed to impress but his Mitchelton-Scott team also claimed four stages. Yates’ twin brother Simon won two stages while Matteo Trentin and Daryl Impey took one apiece.

France’s Julian Alaphilippe, who wore the yellow jersey for 14 days but cracked in the Alps and ended fifth overall, was the race’s most exciting rider.

The world number one, who had been fighting to become France’s first winner since Bernard Hinault in 1985, was voted this year’s most aggressive rider after also winning two stages.

“Alaphilippe changed the deal of this Tour de France, no question about it,” said Tour director Christian Prudhomme.

“There was also the absence of (four-times champion) Chris Froome, which gave hope to many riders.”

Slovakian Peter Sagan wrapped up a record seventh green jersey for the points classification, surpassing the previous mark he held jointly with German Erik Zabel.

Frenchman Romain Bardet won the polka dot jersey for the mountains classification, a consolation prize after he dropped out of overall contention early on.

Sunday’s stage, a mostly processional ride from Rambouillet that ended on the Champs Elysees, as it has done every year since 1975, was won by Ewan, who snatched his third stage win on his Tour debut.

Ewan burst through on the right side of the cobbled avenue to beat Dutchman Groenewegen and Italian Niccolo Bonifazio, who were second and third respectively. </s> On the Champs-Elysees fittingly bathed in the yellow of a golden dusk, a Tour de France for the ages crowned a champion of an unusually young age yesterday: 22-year-old Egan Bernal, Colombia’s first winner of cycling’s greatest race.

“I am the most happy guy in the world. I just won the Tour de France, and, yeah, I can’t believe it,” he said, looking bemused on the podium in the iconic canary-yellow race winner’s jersey and silhouetted by a stunning sunset.

The youngest champion of the post-World War II era, the slightly built Team Ineos rider with a killer instinct on the road proved to be the strongest of the 176 strong men who roared off from the start in Brussels, Belgium, on 6 July on their 3,366-kilometre odyssey that delivered the most absorbing, drama-packed Tour in decades and a new cycling superstar in the making: Bernal.

Riding a yellow bike, and cheered by Colombian fans who were partying even before he rattled up the cobblestones of the famous avenue, Bernal crossed the line with his Welsh team-mate Geraint Thomas, the 2018 champion who this year finished second. Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk completed what Tour organisers said was the tightest podium in the 116-year history of the race, with just 1 minute, 31 seconds separating the first and third places after three weeks of racing.

The 21st and final stage was won in a sprint finish on the Champs-Elysees by Australian Caleb Ewan, pictured right, the dominant sprinter of his first Tour with three stage wins. Keeping with race tradition on its final day, the 155 riders who survived the Tour rode at a pedestrian pace before hitting the Champs-Elysees. Bernal chatted with French rival Julian Alaphilippe and raised a glass of champagne as he rode.

At the finish, Bernal fell into the arms of his family. “I cannot believe it. It’s just incredible. I am sorry. I have no words,” he said through a translator. “I still can’t understand what is happening to me.”

Tearful Colombians celebrated their new hero, who is younger than the Tour’s greatest champions – five-time winners Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain – were when they were first crowned.

But millions of French fans who had lined the roads through east, central and southern France, and up into the thinning air of the Pyrenees and Alps, were ruing a bitter-sweet Tour. First, their hearts soared with fabulous racing from French riders Alaphilippe, who held the iconic yellow jersey for 14 days, and Thibaut Pinot, who won on the first of seven 2,000m-plus peaks scaled by the highest Tour in history.

But joy turned to sorrow when Alaphilippe and Pinot’s prospects of becoming France’s first winner since 1985 were cruelly dashed just two days before the grand finale in Paris, on an epic Stage 19 where Mother Nature became a party-pooping guest. An almighty dump of torrential rain and hail severed the Tour route just as Bernal was succeeding in ripping the race lead off Alaphilippe, who’d clung to it like a kid with a favourite toy.

Alaphilippe, more than anyone, first ignited and then stoked what will long be remembered as a Tour of fireworks. With his goatee beard and can’t-catch-me attacks that rivals couldn’t match, Alaphilippe embodied “panache,” the old-school class so cherished by Tour fans.

Alaphilippe’s enterprise first put him in yellow in Champagne country on Stage 3 and then, after he lost the lead on Stage 6, got him the jersey back on Stage 8, which he held through the Pyrenees and into the Alps. And it was there that Bernal, raised at altitude in Colombia and at home in thinner air, struck.

Bernal flew up the Tour’s highest climb, the dizzying Iseran pass at 2,770m above sea level, demolishing what remained of Alaphilippe’s lead on Stage 19 and building a sizeable one of his own.

The watch was then stopped, with Bernal way ahead, when the hailstorm suddenly coated the route with ice, and prompted fears for the riders’ safety. Compounding the misery for France, Pinot abandoned the race in tears, hobbled by a thigh muscle tear.

Landslides also truncated the last Alpine Stage 20, which still proved too long for the by-now exhausted Alaphilippe, who slipped off the podium entirely. Thomas used the last Alpine climb to secure the runners-up spot in Paris, giving Ineos a podium 1-2 with Bernal.

“I left my skin on the road these past weeks,” Alaphilippe told French sports newspaper L’Equipe.

But instead of a red-white-and-blue celebration, Paris was instead painted in Colombian red, blue and yellow. </s> Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

PARIS — The skies over Paris were yellow, ignited by a glorious golden sunset.

The partying fans’ shirts were yellow, Colombians making themselves at home on the Champs-Elysees.

But the yellow that counted most was the iconic jersey that fit so snugly on the slim shoulders of Egan Bernal.

His crowning Sunday as the Tour de France’s youngest post-World War II champion, and its first from South America, heralded the birth of a new supernova in the cycling universe.

Winning a Tour for the ages at the unusually young age of 22 immediately prompted the question: How many more might he win?

Get this: He’s younger than the Tour’s greatest champions — five-time winners Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain — all were when they were first crowned. Pity those in the peloton who also hope to win future editions of cycling’s greatest race: They could be in for quite a wait.

“I am the most happy guy in the world. I just won the Tour de France, and, yeah, I can’t believe it,” Bernal said, looking bemused on the podium in the race winner’s jersey and silhouetted by the splendid sunset.

The slightly built Colombian with a killer instinct on the road proved to be the strongest of the 176 strong men who roared off from the start in Brussels, Belgium, on July 6 on their 3,366-kilometer (2,092-mile) odyssey that delivered the most absorbing, drama-packed Tour in decades and confirmation that the prodigy Bernal is the real deal.

Riding a yellow bike, and cheered by Colombian fans who were partying even before he rattled up the cobblestones of the Champs-Elysees, Bernal crossed the line with his teammate Geraint Thomas, the 2018 champion who this year finished second. Steven Kruijswijk completed what Tour organizers said was the tightest podium in the 116-year history of the race, with just 1 minute, 31 seconds separating first and third places after three weeks of racing.

The 21st and final stage was won in a sprint finish on the famous avenue by Australian Caleb Ewan, the dominant sprinter of his first Tour with three stage wins. Keeping with race tradition on its final day, the 155 riders who survived the Tour rode at a pedestrian pace and in a joyful atmosphere before hitting the Champs-Elysees. Bernal chatted with French rival Julian Alaphilippe and raised a glass of champagne as he rode.

At the finish, Bernal fell into the arms of his family.

“I cannot believe it. It’s just incredible. I am sorry. I have no words,” he said through a translator. “I still can’t understand what is happening to me.”

“When I saw that he won, I said, ‘I need to go with my music to support him,’” said clarinet-playing Colombian fan Sebastian Cortes, who traveled from Strasbourg in eastern France for the celebration.

But millions of French fans who had lined the roads through east, central and southern France, and up into the thinning air of the Pyrenees and Alps, were ruing a bitter-sweet Tour.

First, their hearts soared with fabulous racing from French riders Alaphilippe, who held the iconic yellow jersey for 14 days, and Thibaut Pinot, who won on the first of seven 2,000-meter-plus (6,500-feet) peaks scaled by the highest Tour in history.

But joy turned to sorrow when Alaphilippe and Pinot’s prospects of becoming France’s first winner since Hinault in 1985 were cruelly dashed just two days before the grand finale in Paris, on an epic Stage 19 where Mother Nature became a party-pooping guest. An almighty dump of torrential rain and hail severed the Tour route just as Bernal was succeeding in ripping the race lead off Alaphilippe, who’d clung to it like a kid with a favorite toy.

“Julian Alaphilippe made us dream,” said Celestin Simon, a Parisian who cheered his hero on the Champs-Elysees in a pointy hat of French red, white and blue. “Unfortunately, there’s no victory at the end.”

Alaphilippe, more than anyone, first ignited and then stoked what will long be remembered as a Tour of fireworks. With his goatee beard and can’t-catch-me attacks that rivals couldn’t match, Alaphilippe embodied “panache,” the old-school class so cherished by Tour fans.

Alaphilippe’s enterprise first put him in yellow in Champagne country on Stage 3 and then, after he lost the lead on Stage 6, got him the jersey back on Stage 8, which he held through the Pyrenees and into the Alps.

And it was there that Bernal, raised at altitude in Colombia and at home in thinner air, struck.

Bernal flew up the Tour’s highest climb, the dizzying Iseran pass at 2,770 meters (9,088-feet) above sea level, demolishing what remained of Alaphilippe’s lead on Stage 19 and building a sizeable one of his own =.

The watch was then stopped, with Bernal way ahead, when the hailstorm suddenly coated the route with ice, amid fears that riders on tires barely wider than their thumbs could skid off into the rock- and ravine-scarred Alpine décor.

Compounding the misery for France, Pinot abandoned the race in tears, hobbled by a left-thigh muscle tear.

And that was that. The Tour that had been careening to a rock ‘n’ roll finish instead had the plug pulled on it. Landslides also truncated the last Alpine Stage 20, which still proved too long for the by-now exhausted Alaphilippe, who slipped off the podium entirely, despite getting words of encouragement in a call the previous night from French President Emmanuel Macron.

Thomas used the last Alpine climb to secure the runner-up spot in Paris, giving the Ineos team a podium 1-2 with Bernal. Third-placed Kruijswijk, a Dutch Mr. Steady, pulled off the feat of being wholly unremarkable during the three weeks, while Alaphilippe, Pinot and Bernal and others rocked.

Quite remarkably, none of the top four riders won a stage. Alaphilippe, in fifth, won two.

“Honestly, I prefer having won two stages and 14 days in yellow than doing nothing and finishing third,” Alaphilippe said Sunday.

So instead of a red-white-and-blue celebration, Paris instead got painted in Colombian red, blue and yellow.

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us! </s> London: Geraint Thomas has "defied the odds" by occupying second place in the Tour de France behind Colombia teammate Egan Bernal, said Team Ineos boss Dave Brailsford.

Bernal, 22, will clinch victory on Sunday as long as he avoids any late disaster on the twilight parade into Paris to become the youngest winner in more than a century.

Thomas was hoping to defend the title he won last year but the 33-year-old Welshman has had to settle for second place.

"He's had a fantastic tour," Brailsford told BBC Radio on Sunday. "The first time someone wins the Tour de France they hardly ever come back and perform well the year afterwards.

"Geraint's defied all the odds there and could have won the race. He's fair, he's balanced, he wanted to win, but then as soon as the opportunity came for the team to win he was 100 percent behind it and he's just a pleasure to work with. He's a class act."

Brailsford said the 2019 Tour had been the "most exciting, open, topsy-turvy kind of race that we've ever been involved in".

"So to come away with first and second on the podium has been tremendously rewarding," Brailsford said. "Of course with a guy so young in Egan it has added an extra bit of enjoyment and a different element because all our previous wins have been with British riders."

Bernal will be the first Colombian winner of cycling's greatest prize.

"He was 19 when we first spoke to him but he was so mature for his age," Brailsford said.

"He's such a well-balanced, super-generous, kind, very giving individual, very concerned about everyone else, and yet he's got this incredible winning streak inside him which has made him the champion that he already is."

Brailsford said four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome was making good progress with his recovery from a horrific crash during a practice ride before stage four of the Criterium du Dauphine, which left him in intensive care.

"He's ahead of schedule," Brailsford said. "He's been riding his static bike with one leg, he's managed to turn a pedal with his other leg so he's well ahead of where he was hoping to be and he's putting everything into his recovery so hopefully we'll see him back at the Tour de France next year."
In road cycling, Colombia's Egan Bernal wins the Tour de France by 1:11 on general classification over his British teammate Geraint Thomas. The 22-year-old Bernal is the first Colombian and first Latin American rider to win the Tour, and the youngest rider to do so since 1909.