Egan Bernal admits he still isn't in the position to lead INEOS at a Grand Tour: "Not yet, to be honest"

Egan Bernal heads into the decisive weekend of Paris-Nice as the INEOS Grenadiers rider best placed in the general classification. He is sixth, 40 seconds behind Luke Plapp and just 10 seconds behind Remco Evenepoel.

He told CyclingPro.Net before stage six that he still doesn't see himself as a rider ready to be the leader in grand tours as he was before his serious injury back in 2022, but he is working for it:

"It's been more than two years of constant struggle, a struggle with myself with the support of my family, my loved ones, everything I've managed to do has been thanks to them and here we are enjoying the bike and looking forward to getting back to my best level.

'Do you feel like a leader for grand tours?' he was asked. The response is sincere, but one he hopes to change over the coming months: "Not yet, to be honest, not yet. Let's see how this week ends and I hope to do other one-week races and keep improving because I still have things to improve. I've done some good training but surely I have a lot of room for improvement".