Simon Yates is not one to show much emotion. Both he and his twin brother Adam, a fellow pro rider, are famously, determinedly dour. But as the ticker tape flew in Rome on Sunday evening, and Yates held aloft the distinctive Trofeo Senza Fine awarded to the winner of the Giro d’Italia, this proud son of Bury could have forgiven himself a wry smile. Time, as they say, is a healer.
Seven years ago, Yates had to watch as Chris Froome celebrated his own, extraordinary Giro d’Italia victory; a victory memorably forged on the Colle delle Finestre where Froome, then riding for Team Sky, put the entire field including Yates to the sword, going solo from 80km out.
Yates, who had been in the pink leader’s jersey for almost two weeks by that point, lost 38 minutes that day. It was a spectacular implosion. Some wondered whether he would ever recover.
They breed them tough on the West Pennine Moors. Just three months later, Yates won his maiden grand tour, the Vuelta a España, with a display of consummate control, proving he had learnt from his experience. Whereas at that year’s Giro Yates had attacked ceaselessly, grabbing seconds here and there, in Spain he rode with the caution of a grizzled veteran.
Yates showed at this Giro that he is not yet done with the learning. The Briton’s race-winning move on the Finestre on Saturday, the same mountain which had defeated him in 2018, was a triumph of planning, grim determination and mental fortitude.
“Once the route was released I always had it in the back of my mind that maybe I could come here and close the chapter,” Yates said on Saturday. He certainly did that. He wrote his own ending this time, although he would surely never have expected to write that he would one day meet the Pope wearing pink.
The race stopped off at the Vatican while neutralised on Sunday morning for the champion-in-waiting to be greeted by Pope Leo XIV, with more than 150 riders being blessed as part of a two-mile route through the Vatican City.
“You are role models for young people all over the world,” Pope Leo told the peloton. “May God bless all of you on this last part of the Giro d’Italia. Congratulations to all of you. May you know that you are always welcome here in the Vatican. You are always welcome by the church, which represents God’s love for all people.”
Luckily Yates needed no divine intervention for his victory, rather he had his team to thank. Visma-Lease a Bike managed to get Wout van Aert of all people – probably the rider you would most want in the entire world to give you a tow – into Saturday’s breakaway. Once Yates bridged to the powerhouse Belgian over the summit of the Finestre, a two-minute margin rapidly blew out to five minutes. Game over.
Questions will continue to be asked of Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz. What was their Mexican standoff all about? What were their teams thinking? But to be honest, it did not look as if either of them had the legs to respond by that point. Like Yates in 2018, they had used up their reserves.
In fact, it is tempting to imagine this was all part of Yates’ strategy on Friday, when he lost 30 seconds on GC and complained bitterly the team had not ridden as he wanted. Was it all an elaborate rope-a-dope?
Regardless, and with all due respect to his victory at the Vuelta in 2018, this is the finest achievement of Yates’ career.
It will not garner the attention that Froome’s Giro win did in 2018, or even Tao Geoghegan Hart’s surprise lockdown victory two years later. And it is not perhaps on the same level as the Tour de France wins by Bradley Wiggins, Froome and Geraint Thomas. The tour attracts the best in the world at their best, and this field did not contain a Tadej Pogacar or a Jonas Vingegaard.
But it was still a magnificent achievement. One of the finest in British cycling history.
Yates bided his time, stayed in touch, and when the chance came, he grabbed it with both hands. His ascent of the Finestre, 59:23 minutes at 6.20 ᵉW/kg, was the fastest ever recorded in a race, and the first under an hour.
Yates does have one blip on his CV. His four-month ban for ‘non-intentional’ doping back in 2016 – he declared the use of terbutaline to treat asthma at a race but his team doctor failed to fill in the necessary form – was a major source of embarrassment for him and a stick with which cycling sceptics beat him for a time.
Yates bounced back from that early experience to become one of the finest riders of his generation. A world points race champion on the track as a youngster, he now has two grand tour wins to his name.
Not that he will shout about it. Yates has always left that to others, sometimes with amusing results. In 2018, the cycling media were so desperate to bestow a bit of colour on him, The Cycling Podcast took to calling him ‘Il Sanguinaccio Volante’ – the Flying Black Pudding – in honour of his hometown.
At the Hare & Hounds in Ramsbottom, Lancashire, where his old Bury Clarion team-mates still meet, they will raise a glass to one of their own. And one suspects that will be enough for Yates.