A historic day on Colle delle Finestre delivered one of the biggest upsets in recent Giro d’Italia history. Simon Yates produced a career-best performance to blow apart the GC on the legendary climb.

Giro d’Italia stage 20 2025 profile

It was the final mountain stage of the Giro d’Italia with Colle delle Finestre (18.6 km, 9.11%), where in 2018 Chris Froome had a 42-second gap over Tom Dumoulin, Thibaut Pinot, Miguel Ángel López, and Richard Carapaz. Froome did it in 64:19 min with 5.68 ᵉW/kg and launched an 80 km solo to win the Giro. In the 2024 Tour de l’Avenir, Pablo Torres almost pulled off the impossible with a new record of 60:45 min and 6.04 ᵉW/kg, beating Joe Blackmore by almost 4 minutes but still not winning the GC due to earlier time losses. Here in this Giro, with unexpected things possible in GC and 0.1 W/kg on this climb being worth around 1 minute, it was set to be an exciting finish.

Despite it being one of the hardest and longest climbs in cycling, EF Education went full gas at the start of Finestre for Richard Carapaz, with Isaac Del Toro following him. Simon Yates and Derek Gee stayed calm and did not blow up their legs at the start of what was essentially an FTP test, eventually catching up. Later, Yates attacked multiple times until he opened a gap, with Wout van Aert having been in the early breakaway up the mountain, serving as a possible satellite rider after Finestre. Del Toro and Carapaz stayed together, with Gee at some point pacing for both. Despite wearing the maglia rosa, Del Toro did not pull, knowing that Carapaz would attack him if he did and allowed Yates to increase his lead.

Sestrière (Vialattea) – Italy – cycling – cyclisme – radsport – wielrennen – Isaac Del Toro (MEX – UAE Team Emirates – XRG) pictured during 108th Giro d’Italia (2.UWT) stage 20 from Verrès to Sestrière (Vialattea) (205km) – 31/05/2025 – Photo: Luca Bettini/SCA/Cor Vos © 2025

Yates delivered the best climbing performance of his career on Finestre with 6.20 ᵉW/kg for 59:23 min, beating Torres’ record by 1 minute and 22 seconds. Del Toro and Carapaz lost 1:38 min to Yates on the climb. Carapaz pushed 5.99 ᵉW/kg, while Del Toro, with more drafting, did 5.95 ᵉW/kg. Yates was 4:56 min faster than Froome in 2018 and much faster than his own time when he cracked on Finestre while defending his lead.

After Finestre, Yates had Van Aert to support him and was in the virtual leader’s jersey, while Del Toro and Carapaz refused to cooperate, handing Yates a huge advantage. Carapaz could no longer win the Giro, and Del Toro gave up, with Yates ultimately beating them by more than 5 minutes. Chris Harper won the stage from a breakaway, achieving a well deserved first World Tour victory.

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