Haunted no more: How Simon Yates laid his ghosts to rest in stunning style at Giro d'Italia

"I always had the hope that I could do something, but I never really believed it could happen. I just needed the right moment." This was Simon Yates’ (Visma–Lease a Bike) verdict on his sensational and still almost dream-like Giro d’Italia triumph ahead of the final processional stage around Rome on Sunday.

"The right moment" is something of an understatement. The poetic symmetry with which Yates can now bookend his turbulent relationship with the Giro – with an explosive revival on the same climb where he had cracked so dramatically seven years prior – was so brilliant, so far-fetched and so sophistic that even the best of scriptwriters would have struggled to come up with it.

"The right moment" was also something that did not play out in a single moment, but over the entire course of one of the Giro’s most celebrated climbs and well beyond, not to mention in the many climbs, races and seasons that preceded it. In short, it was "something" that Yates admitted he had "worked towards for many, many years".

To lose the Giro in 2018 as he did on the Colle delle Finestre – with a collapse so emphatic that cost him so much more than the pink jersey on his back – and then, seven years and five Giro later, return to the figurative scene of the crime to draw a line under it and rewrite history, has created one of those stories that make cycling so special.

"Once the route was released," Yates admitted in the moments after his mythical capture of the maglia rosa, "I always had in the back of my mind that maybe I could come here and close a chapter – maybe not to take the pink jersey and win the race, but to take a stage and show myself in the way I know I can do."

Even the most hardened of souls would have struggled to avoid welling up on hearing Yates’ cries of joy and relief as he broke down in tears over the line – a reaction of such raw emotion from someone not usually associated with wearing his heart on his sleeve.

As Yates said, finally letting the facade down and no longer forcing viewers to read between the lines and through the usual platitudes: "I feel like a lot of people can resonate with the story – you know, losing the race a long time ago now in 2018, and the way I’ve managed to take it yesterday, it’s really touched a lot of people."

The attack on the Finestre itself was not so much a single attack or moment but a series of softening blows to test the waters and weaken his rivals, before one sustained, inspired surge up a mountain on whose gravelled peak his dreams had previously been so cruelly dashed.

It relied on Yates’ strength, bravery and inner belief as much as it did on the indecision, hesitation, fragility and fatigue of both the riders who started the day above Yates in the general classification, but who now trailed him on the race’s final, decisive climb: the potential champion elect from Mexico and the wizened 2019 champion from Ecuador.

Perhaps symbolically, it also relied on a gutsy fightback from Yates before any of this could come into play. The brutal tempo of EF Education-EasyPost and the initial acceleration of Richard Carapaz had dispatched everyone from the general classification group except Isaac del Toro (UAE Emirates XRG), with Yates first forced to find his rhythm and slowly return to contention.

Yates had not disguised during interviews at this Giro that he could not match the explosiveness of the pedalling matador Del Toro or his South American foil. Carapaz had showcased his superior kick in his attack to win Stage 12 at Castelnovo ne’ Monti, while Del Toro’s turn of pace saw him swoop to 52 bonus seconds throughout the race – a whopping 48 more than the man who eventually beat him.

In Del Toro, Yates could well have seen a reflection of his own self when he turned up to his debut Giro as Mitchelton-Scott’s 25-year-old leader in 2018. Riding with metaphoric diamonds in his legs that May, Yates was a persistent animator – constantly off the front and almost floating to three stage wins while in the pink jersey.

Likewise, Del Toro’s reign in pink saw the Mexican tyro finish second three times and third once before his victory in Bormio; if he never dropped below sixth place after the first time trial, he also never shied away from closing gaps, testing his rivals, picking up bonus seconds here, there and everywhere.

But to what end? It was always going to be on the long and consistently steep climbs that marked the final two mountain stages of the race where Del Toro’s pink credentials would be properly tested. And with third-place Yates going up the road, I dare say Del Toro may have regretted the impetuosity and hunger with which he rode the previous weeks, while understandably on cloud nine.

By contrast, his success was a triumph of measured efforts and perfectly timed attacks – a conservative strategy that yielded no visits to the podium for the three weeks prior to donning the maglia rosa on the eve of lifting the Trofeo Senza Fine.

Despite winning six stages in the Giro prior to this year’s 108th edition, Yates indeed became the first Giro winner in a decade not to win a stage during the race – a feat last achieved by Alberto Contador in 2015.

Yates’s race-winning salvo in Stage 20 also, as we know, relied on a piece of tactical brilliance from Visma-Lease a Bike that ensured that the Lancastrian’s redemptive ride up the Colle delle Finestre was not simply a footnote to the day’s action but one of the magical moments in the sport’s recent history.

Where both Del Toro and Carapaz had no satellite riders up the road, Yates had the best in the business waiting for him on the descent, ready to provide the same kind of service he treated Jonas Vingegaard (Visma) to on the roads of France in July. Take a bow, Wout van Aert (Visma).

A lot has been said about the tactics of Del Toro and his UAE management, a lot of which detracts from the fact that the man losing the Giro that day was a 21-year-old kid riding his first ever Giro and not a 32-year-old veteran who should have known better. Del Toro’s (or UAE’s?) decision to call Carapaz’s bluff and not to respond to the growing danger oversimplifies and underplays the complexity of the situation.

For all the disappointment of losing the Giro at the last hurdle after 11 glorious days in pink, Del Toro wrote himself into the history books as the youngest stage winner in the maglia rosa this century and the first Mexican stage winner in 23 years – all this in only his second Grand Tour in a race where he took over UAE’s leadership duties from Juan Ayuso and Adam Yates.

"I’m super proud of my performance these three weeks," an upbeat Del Toro said once he had swapped pink for white. "I think I showed everyone that I can do it, and more importantly, I showed myself that I can do it. The team was always with me, giving me confidence, and it was incredible to show all the performances I can do. It was like a dream. If someone said before that I would finish second, you would laugh."

It is an inescapable truism that for every winner, there must be losers. Del Toro’s victory in Bormio just a few days before his dethronement had denied Romain Bardet the chance to complete his clean sweep of Grand Tour stage wins just weeks from retirement – just as Primoz Roglic’s (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) last-day time trial win burst Geraint Thomas’ (Ineos Grenadiers) bubble 12 months earlier, and just as Chris Froome’s (Israel-Premier Tech) barnstorming solo win in 2018 had been the celebrated corollary to Yates’s implosion on the Finestre.

It is a mark of just how formidable Yates’ ride was on Sunday that he became the first rider in history to ride from the bottom to the top of the Colle delle Finestre in under an hour, shaving the best part of five minutes off Froome’s previous record. In this way, Yates not only drew a line under seven years of hurt, but he rendered quite ordinary what had previously been held up as one of the most epic and legendary achievements in the Giro’s modern history.

In the aftermath, Yates spoke of "all the ups and downs" and "disappointments" of his career – most notably his relationship with La Corsa Rosa, a race he came so close to winning at the first attempt. Part of the catharsis of getting over that setback had been found in Yates’ regrouping to win the Vuelta that summer.

But in 2019, when Yates bullishly returned to Italy with the statement that he considered himself "the number one favourite", he then suffered the ignominy of losing three minutes in the second time trial and further time in the mountains. He later described finishing eighth, almost eight minutes behind the champion Carapaz, as "heartbreaking".

Covid thwarted his third attempt at the Giro in 2020 before Yates came a distant third behind Egan Bernal (Ineos) and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) in 2021. After winning the early time trial in Budapest in 2022, Yates looked to have found the right balance – only for a knee injury to see him implode on the climb to Blockhaus in Stage 9. He added another stage later but was forced out again with Covid.

Indeed, DNFs had become something of a regularity for Yates in the second part of his career, the 32-year-old having failed to finish four of his previous seven Grand Tours coming into this Giro. By contrast, his twin brother Adam had seemingly found the right balance with a string of top 10 finishes while playing a mountain domestique role at Ineos and UAE.

Simon’s decision to seemingly follow Adam’s path and put his personal ambitions aside by moving to Visma looked like a tacit acceptance that his GC days were perhaps over, that he would be better served working for a leader like Vingegaard.

Such was the tapering of Simon’s results that – even though he arrived at the Giro as Visma’s designated leader – many overlooked his chances of glory. In my own pre-race pink jersey guide, I gave him a mere three-star rating (alongside Jai Hindley (Red Bull), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious)) and predicted he would finish sixth in Rome, behind the likes of Roglic, Ayuso and even his brother.

But Yates clearly had the belief in himself and his team. He watched as his rivals flailed and faltered, as the favourites crashed out – and when the Mexican mirror of his former self kept attacking and stealing seconds, Yates kept his cool, rode his own race and turned the page on the most difficult chapter of his career, rewriting history in the process.

On Sunday, Yates admitted that his second Grand Tour win represented the "pinnacle of my career," adding: "I don’t know how much better it can get from here, to be honest."

"If I was him," Yates’ twin brother told Adam Blythe during Sunday’s processional stage into Rome, "I’d be retiring now. Just won the Giro!"

But like Adam, Simon will be heading to the Tour de France in July, where both brothers will ride in the service of giants Pogacar and Vingegaard. And who knows, if something happens to the Dane, perhaps Simon will be asked to step up into a leadership role. The true pinnacle may yet be on the horizon.