Egan Bernal positive on return to racing at Catalunya: "The most positive thing is that my knee no longer hurts at all"

Egan Bernal is optimistic on his return to racing. A knee injury acquired during the Vuelta a San Juan wrecked his form early in the season, but after working through it and returning to training, he's flown back to Europe and restarted his competition at the Volta a Catalunya. His early feedback is good.

"With everything that has happened I feel good. We knew before the start that I wouldn't be in the shape to compete at the front," Bernal said in a press release. "It has always been about making the body better for future races. I haven't been able to train as much as I would have liked, but with that in mind I'm happy with how the final climb went on Tuesday."

Initially, Bernal planned on racing the Vuelta a Andalucia and Paris-Nice before the Catalan event, which due to it's mountainous nature would be an ideal platform for Bernal to prove himself ahead of the summer where he still dreams of returning to the lead of INEOS Grenadiers. He couldn't race both however, and after an inspiring 4th place in the queen stage of San Juan, he had to overcome another obstacle.

Bernal finished 32nd in the first mountain stage to Vallter 2000 in Catalunya, after which he commented: "I want to finish Catalunya better than I started there and this is a challenging race to do that. The most positive thing is that my knee no longer hurts at all, I am very happy about that." Following stage 3 into La Molina the Colombian dropped out of the possible GC fight as he suffered with the high pace of Soudal - Quick-Step.