(Reuters) – Colombian cyclist Egan Bernal posted a video on social media on Thursday of what he said were his first steps less than three weeks after injuring his spine, legs and chest in a training accident that left him needing neurosurgery.
Bernal, who became the first South American to win the Tour de France in 2019 and added the Giro d’Italia to his list of achievements last year, crashed on Jan. 24 near Colombia’s capital Bogota.
The 25-year-old said he had a 95% chance of becoming a paraplegic following the accident. He left the hospital last week.
“Surprise!! My first steps,” Bernal said in the post on Twitter, which accompanied a video of himself wearing a spine and neck brace as he opens a door and walks through it into the sunshine, gesturing that he is okay to the camera.
Bernal was the youngest rider to win the Tour in more than a century and recently extended his contract with the Ineos Grenadiers team to 2026.
(Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru; Editing by Karishma Singh)
