For every super-talent like Tadej Pogacar, every young star like Isaac del Toro, are several figures like Simon Yates. In a sport that is all too quick to leap on the newest, brightest and youngest talent, Yates’ Giro d’Italia title was a victory of hard graft, of fighting through adversity, a very human rider exorcising his demons and earning the sweetest of rewards.
The 32-year-old has gone through heartbreak at this race. The maglia rosa was his to lose in 2018, and lose it he did as illness – and Chris Froome – struck at the worst possible time.
But this year Yates came in high on confidence. Seven years on from the day his Giro tilt utterly collapsed, on the punishing slopes of the Finestre, he picked his moment. He rode a tactically astute race, moving slowly up the overall standings over the first week, staying under the radar, never putting himself too far into the red. All race he bided his time, staying in touch with his rivals and matching their moves. Now he let them blow each other up as he rode away with the race victory.
To some degree part of Yates’ second grand tour win – which puts him second in the rankings for British men, only behind Froome’s monumental seven – was down to Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz’s kamikaze mission in the crucial moments of stage 20. Everyone knew the race came down to that day; the margins were small enough that del Toro’s lead could very easily go up in smoke. But as the pair failed to work together to chase down Yates’ decisive attack, it became clear that they were riding for podium spots and nothing more.
But those tactical decisions take nothing away from Yates’ brilliant ride. The Bury rider has always had the talent, but not always the opportunity or the form. He moved from Jayco-AlUla, the team he spent 10 years with, for more chances at grand tour leadership. He switched to the behemoth that is Visma-Lease a Bike, taking a secondary role behind the squad’s Tour de France specialist Jonas Vingegaard.
That gave him a shot at the Giro, albeit in a team that was also sending a dedicated lead-out for sprinter Olav Kooij. He didn’t have the pure mountain might of UAE Team Emirates-XRG. Juan Ayuso could count on the ever-reliable climbing domestique Rafal Majka, Yates’ own brother Adam, and exciting young talents in Igor Arrieta and Del Toro – the latter included as a support rider for Ayuso before his own career-making ride to second place overall.
Yates’ biggest support in the toughest days of this Giro was Wout van Aert, a rider of almost superhuman quality who turned himself inside out in the hope of overturning the Briton’s deficit. His pull for Yates in the valley to Sestriere extended his gap over his pursuers from two to four minutes. He was instrumental in him winning the race – and overturning the might of the world’s biggest team.
The fact that Visma-Lease a Bike rolled off the startline for the final stage clad in special kits accented with pink, presumably organised some time in advance, indicated that there had been faith within the team for some time that Yates could pull off a miraculous comeback.
But outside the Visma bus the chances looked slim. Yates himself downplayed them at the end of stage 19, a virtual stalemate between the big GC favourites as the day’s difficult and repetitive climbing neutralised any chance of real attacks among them.
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Of the three riders on the virtual podium, he had looked the weakest in the mountains of the final week. The time gaps slowly extended: he lost 25 seconds to Del Toro and 15 to Carapaz on stage 17 to Bormio, a further 30 to Del Toro and 28 to the Ecuadorian at the end of stage 19, in which he appeared to blame Visma’s team tactics for his inability to follow at the finish.
Stage 20 was a case of all or nothing. The memories of the Finestre in 2018, the day his overall lead – and any chance of winning the race – utterly collapsed, loomed large.
They were etched on his face as he crossed the line at Sestriere. It was a tearful homecoming. The 32-year-old had not ridden up the Finestre since losing 38 minutes there, ruining his hopes of a maiden grand tour victory. This time he was the conqueror, not the conquered.
He rode through Rome on Sunday arm in arm with twin brother Adam – temporary emnity from their opposing teams forgotten – and crossed the finish line a few seconds down on teammate Kooij, rounding off Visma’s brilliant Giro with a second stage win for their sprinter. He headed straight into the arms of his partner as the engravers readied themselves to write his name on the trophy, and the annals of history.
This was a race of redemption, a glorious comeback for a rider who may well have thought that day in 2018 that he’d never again come so close to victory at a grand tour. He won the Vuelta only a few months later, but the intervening years have been low on opportunities for revenge at the Giro.
A third place finish in 2021 was the closest he has come to pulling on the maglia rosa since; he pulled out with Covid-19 in the delayed 2020 edition, and abandoned the race with a knee injury in 2022. It has been a lean seven years in Italy since that emotionally fraught stage 19 on the Finestre. But the story now, at long last, has a happy ending.
