Cycling | Giro d'Italia: Simon Yates – an old-school winner

It was a historic image. Wearing the pink jersey, which he had secured only the evening before, Simon Yates stood next to a man dressed entirely in white at the conclusion of the Giro d'Italia on Sunday. This wasn't the wearer of the jersey for the best young rider, which is also the color of innocence: the fabric worn by the man next to the pink-clad Brit from Bury was much more opulent. It bore the image of Pope Leo XIV , who greeted the peloton at the start of the 21st and final stage of the Giro d'Italia in Vatican City .

It was surprising that Yates was able to experience the ceremony from the perspective of the overall leader. For 19 days, the Tour captain of Team Visma had remained well hidden in the field. He didn't stick his nose out in a single sprint, nor did he manage to win a single stage at the Giro . This meant that he was able to steer clear of energy-sapping media events and podium celebrations. The 32-year-old also avoided the sprints in the fight for bonus seconds. "The others are more explosive," he explained.

His style was the opposite of spectacular. His main rival Isaac Del Toro, on the other hand, threw himself into every battle, no matter how small, with the carefree attitude of youth. The Mexican picked up 52 bonus seconds in intermediate sprints – and then joked about the older riders' fear of this kind of wasted energy. In the end, the old skeptics were right. With Yates, the winner was an old-school tour rider, someone who has deeply internalized the idea of ​​"conserving energy." " The Giro is structured in such a way that the decision isn't made until the third week anyway . Before then, you have to avoid mistakes and not lose any time," he said, describing his approach.

Yates stuck to this plan and concentrated all his resources on the decisive day. On Saturday he took to the Colle delle Finestre, of all places, and thanks to his determination he opened up a lead of more than five minutes. The 52 bonus seconds of the 21-year-old Del Toro seem tiny compared to this blow. And it is of historic importance that Yates achieved this on the very mountain where he had suffered his biggest defeat as a professional cyclist to date. In 2018 he lost the Giro here, after 13 days in pink. Back then he completely collapsed and ultimately lost almost 40 minutes to his compatriot Chris Froome, who thus perfected his Giro triumph . "This climb has shaped my career. And when the Giro route was announced, I decided to try something special here," he explained.

But Yates doesn't look back as a triumphant rider. Rather, he admitted his doubts at the start of the stage. Only when he was able to pull away from his main rivals, Del Toro and Richard Carapaz, who had shared the podium with him in Rome, did his conviction that he could win the stage grow stronger, step by step. "I noticed that I could maintain a high pace and maintain it all the way to the finish," he said.

With the tools of a climber who enjoys long edges and whose musculature is able to provide the power needed for a steady pace, he overcame his more explosive opponents. After seven years, he felt he had come full circle: "All the hardships, all the setbacks I had to endure along the way, are now forgotten." Tears streamed down the cycling veteran's face. With this crowning achievement of his career, Yates also brought the former superpower Great Britain back to the forefront after a break of several years, when the top podium places in the Grand Tours were primarily occupied by Slovenians, Danes, and Colombians.