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Stefan Küng skips the last 5 stages of the Tour de France. Egan Bernal did not start the 17th stage either.
It doesn’t go as far as Paris
Stefan Küng.
Keystone
When the Tour de France entourage kicked off Stage 17 on Wednesday at 12.30pm in Grenoble, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and last year’s winner Egan Bernal (Ineos) were not there. The two skip the last 5 stages of the French national tour.
By retiring early, Küng is gaining a little more preparation time for the World Cup in Imola and the Emilia-Romagna region (September 24-27). The individual time trial is scheduled for September 25. As European champion, Thurgau, 26, is one of the favorites.
After Tuesday’s mountain stage of the Tour, in which he nearly crossed the finish line with the Tour winners, Küng was 53rd overall, around 2 hours behind.
19 minutes behind the leader
At Bernal, the reasons are obvious. The Colombian had to bury his ambitions to defend his title no later than last Sunday. Bernal had gotten off to a bad start on this year’s tour and hadn’t gotten his usual performance.
The 23-year-old, who won the Tour de France last year as the youngest rider in more than a century, was just 16th overall, a good 19 minutes behind leader Primoz Roglic.
“Of course I didn’t want my Tour de France to end like this. But I agree that given the circumstances it is the right decision for me, ”Bernal quoted in a message from his Ineos team. Bernal will now focus on recovery.
