Egan Bernal holds the
face of his younger
brother Ronald after his
Tour de France victory
on Sunday Columbia’s first ever Tour de France winner wrapped up his historic victory on Sunday by making the sign of the cross with his younger brother and again with his mother.
Egan Bernal, 22, the youngest cyclist to win the world’s most famous bicycle race in 110 years and the first Latin American to do so hugged his younger brother Ronald before the two brothers blessed each other, doing likewise with his mother Flor Gomez.
Now riding for UCI WorldTeam Ineos, Bernal was inspired to take up cycling by his father German, who cycled in his spare time while working as a security guard in the famous ‘salt cathedrals’ of Zipaquirá, the small town in central Columbia from where Bernal hails.
Carved from salt in the town’s salt mines, the first underground chapel in Zipaquirá was built in 1932, with a cathedral with capacity for 8,000 people being inaugurated in 1954. It closed in 1992 due to structural problems, with a second cathedral being built in 1995. Over 600,000 people visited the cathedral in 2017.