Simon Yates previously endured a near miss in the Giro d’Italia but seven years on from that disappointment he claimed glory as he rode into Rome to claim another Grand Tour success
His tears fell like melting Alpine snow on the forbidding slopes where imminent triumph had evaporated seven years ago.
It was on the Colle delle Finestre, with the Giro d’Italia’s fabled maglia rosa (pink jersey) at his mercy, that Simon Yates cracked in 2018 and fellow Brit Chris Froome disappeared over the horizon on a stunning 50-mile solo breakaway. But as Yates rode into Rome as Britain’s 12th Grand Tour winner since 2012, this time he was pretty in pink.
If the Finestre had broken his resolve when Va Va Froome’s ambush left him 38 minutes down the road, this time it was a 7,146ft monument to Yates’s spirit.
When historians compile their dossiers on a golden age for British cycling, the pages will show that only all-time great Froome has won more Grand Tours than the Boy from Bury. And unsung or not, Yates will take his place in the pantheon of our blazing saddles on the road.
Sir Bradley Wiggins has been a troubled soul lately after he set the bar on the Tour de France 13 years ago and he knocking out five gold medals across four Olympic Games.
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Froome’s indefatigable stamina brought him four Yellow Jerseys between 2013-17, two Vuelta titles in Spain and that Giro heist when he overhauled Yates. Geraint Thomas, for so long Froome’s loyal sidekick on Le Tour, finally scaled the top step of the podium on the Champs Elysees in 2018 – and Thomas the flank engine was runner-up the following year.
And if Tao Geoghegan Hart’s maglia rosa in the 2020 Giro is largely forgotten more than amnesia itself, he has since managed only one top 20 finish on a Grand Tour to back it up. But Yates, 32, now belongs in the top bracket with Froome.
Four months after he cracked on the Finestre, winning a maiden Grand Tour at the Vuelta in Spain was a glittering consolation, but he never abandoned his mission to come back to the Giro and be tickled pink. Climbing the beast of Piedmont in 59min 22sec, the first man to reach the summit in less than an hour, he dissolved into tears when the enormity of his achievement sunk in.
And even the stoniest, coldest heart would deny his right to turn on the taps after leaving Mexico’s overnight leader Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz in his slipstream.
“I’m still a bit speechless that I was able to do it. I’m not really an emotional person but I couldn’t hold back the tears,” said Yates, whose sensational ride denied his twin brother Adam, Del Toro’s UAE Team Emirates lieutenant, the laurels.
Rising above the emotional whiplash, Adam Yates shrugged: “If it had to be anyone, it would be my brother. I’m happy for him, I can still congratulate him and celebrate a little. If one person rides so crazy, whether it’s Pogacar or my brother, and someone has better legs than you on the day, you have to take the blow on the jaw and accept it. We can’t be disappointed.”
The 11.5-mile climb up the Finestre, with a lung-bursting average gradient of 9.2 per cent, took Yates above the snow line.
More importantly, he overturned Del Toro’s 81-second advantage, converted it into a 1min 41sec lead and his brilliant Visma/Lease A Bike team-mate Wout van Aert’s inspired escort did the rest. Del Toro’s UAE Team Emirates were caught asleep at the handlebars, with baffled onlooker Thomas tweeting in disbelief: “What is going on?”
But as Yates wheeled into the Eternal City, simultaneously he landed in the rarefied atmosphere of Britain’s greatest riders.