Simon Yates will be on stage at Rouleur Live on Saturday November 15, 2025. Get your tickets here: Rouleur Live Tickets
And then there were the tears. We saw them for just a second at the finish line of stage 20 in Sestrière before Simon Yates, the new pink jersey wearer at this year’s Giro d’Italia, was lost to a frenzy of bodies, microphones and cameras. Everyone wanted a glimpse of the man who had achieved his impossible dream. Television pictures flashed up on screen showing the Visma-Lease a Bike rider, who is usually so reserved, breaking into heavy, visceral sobs. Yates had conquered La Corsa Rosa, the race which has both given and taken so much from him. Cycling does not grant fairytale endings often. This win was romance. It was magic.
The last time the Giro went up the Colle delle Finestre in 2018, Yates finished 38 minutes down after being brutally, tragically dropped by a devastating attack from Chris Froome who went on to win the pink jersey. The Sky rider’s performance was unprecedented and unexpected – Yates had seemed destined to win, but the maglia rosa slid from his grasp on the gravel slopes that make up one of Italy’s most fabled mountains. Now, seven years on, the British rider, older and wiser, has returned to the climb and rewritten the story. The demons have been fought and the redemption arc is complete. Perhaps it was written in the stars – a beautiful conclusion befitting of the sport’s most beautiful bike race.
“I’ve spent a lot of my life targeting this race. There’s been a lot of setbacks, it has been hard to deal with. I’m in disbelief that I have finally managed to pull it off,” Yates stated in his post-race press conference, his eyes glassy and voice cracking.
“When I saw the route and the parcours, I always had in the back of my mind to try something on this stage and climb that has defined my career so far. Right now is the peak of my career. Nothing will top this. I’m not getting any younger and to win the Giro, something I have not been able to pull off, it’s the best it will ever be.”
Throughout the three weeks which have made up this Grand Tour so far, Yates has remained unequivocally reserved and calm. Quietly, he had been staying close to his general classification rivals while still masterfully keeping out of the spotlight. Going into the final alpine stage, the 32-year-old was hiding in plain sight – third overall but avoiding the attention which was focused on Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz, the riders who sat in front of him in first and second. It has been the type of dissection of a three-week stage race that only someone who has been through what Yates’ has could pull off. The misfortune, the pain and the heartbreak were all part of the journey, integral to making the pink jersey in 2025 a reality.
“Simon didn’t mention [redemption] before this stage but when he came up here on the last time to this finish line, when he remembered it was Finestre where he lost everything and Finestre where he won it all back, that was special for him,” Jesper Morkov, Yates’ coach at Visma-Lease a Bike told Rouleur after the stage.
He added that Yates’ character has been a key factor in ensuring that the British rider has remained measured and grounded for the past 19 stages: “He is a really nice person to work with, really calm and you can feel that he has been in the peloton for a couple of years. He knows what is coming up but he’s really easy going, always has a fun laugh. He’s nice to be around.”
The winning attack that the 32-year-old made on the Finestre – just a few kilometres away from the place he had so spectacularly cracked seven years before – was fuelled by the knowledge of what it feels like to lose. Every pedal stroke that Yates’ completed was for the sacrifice and mental fortitude it has taken to be back in this position at all. He raced to win, for he could not accept any other outcome.
"The first talk we had with him at the training camp was only about this stage that he really wanted to do well here. He can never forget that (2018 Giro) but now that is in the back of his memories,” Visma’s sports director Marc Reef said after the stage. “Now on the Finestre, he's turned the Giro upside down. Until this moment he was really calm but when he sat down and started to think, he got emotional and it began to sink in. It was special to see."
In the sport of cycling, which can be so cruel and heartless, riders lose more than they win. Yates explained in his interviews that he had, at times, come close to falling out of love with the Giro d’Italia, but something, a belief somewhere, has kept him coming back. His performance on stage 20 was proof of why. There is a reason why the Giro's slogan is amore infinito. Infinite love.
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