On Saturday, Simon Yates could not stop crying as he tried to process what he’d just done: attacked on the Colle delle Finestre and all but won the Giro d’Italia, after eight years of trying.
Twenty-four hours later, tears turned to laughter as Yates stepped onto the podium in Rome and chuckled in disbelief as the trophy he so longed for was handed to him.
The 32-year-old Brit only had a day to start realising what he had achieved – and his team had only hours to sort out full pink kit and accessories for stage 21 – but as he sat down amongst the history of the Musei Capitolini in the Italian capital, it was finally starting to feel real.
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“It feels really amazing. I think it’s slowly, slowly sinking in,” he said, later reflecting on the outpouring of emotions he’d shown on stage 20.
“I’d normally consider myself quite unemotional, let’s say, and quite focused, but I just couldn’t hold it back. Yesterday it really got to me, and not to keep repeating myself, but it’s something I’ve really worked for and really sacrificed for a long time. I just couldn’t believe that I had managed to pull it off. It just came pouring out,” he said.
“It’s still sinking in as well. Also today we finished in such a great way with the stage win as well, I think everyone’s just on cloud nine as well, so you really start to realise what we’ve accomplished here. We had a great Giro, and we’ll see what happens after this.”
Yates is already a Grand Tour winner, after taking the Vuelta a España in 2018 – at the time a comeback of its own after his dramatic loss at the Giro a few months prior – but winning the Italian Grand Tour is a huge addition to his palmarès, for both personal and professional reasons.
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“Even since I turned professional, I always dreamed of winning the best races, and of course the Grand Tours are the pinnacle of our sport,” he said. “I fell in love with the Giro in 2018 and I think you guys already know that I’ve had my ups and downs here, but it’s a race that kept calling my name and I’ve finally managed to win the race. I still can’t believe it but it’s a dream come true.”
There are lots of reasons why 2025 was finally Yates’ year after so many ups and downs at the Giro, but one is certainly his move to Visma-Lease a Bike, now winners of seven Grand Tours in the last five years, after the Brit spent 11 seasons with Jayco AlUla.
Simon Yates reacts at the finish in Rome with his Grand Tour win (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
“I think I just needed a change, and I wanted to come to a team that knew how to win the Grand Tours. They’ve done it successfully with different riders, and it’s looking like it’s paid off,” he said about his move. “That’s also one of the reasons why I made the change, because I was searching for more.
“But of course I have no regrets with staying at Jayco for so long. I have some lifelong friends and some great memories – pretty much all my successes other than the Giro right now have been there.”
Yates also paid tribute to his rival Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who had worn pink up until stage 20, and happens to be the teammate of Yates’ twin Adam – though when the brothers road through Rome together on Sunday, they weren’t talking about the race, just about meeting the Pope.
“Isaac himself, he’s such a young guy, I think he has a really bright future – he’s already world class,” Yates said of Del Toro. “I think when I was 21 I was still just a neo pro or maybe I was not even professional yet so I’m sure he will bounce back and he’ll have a lot more success in his future.”
Next, Yates will head to the Tour de France to ride as a domestique for Jonas Vingegaard – there’s “no debate” about his role, he affirmed – and has the chance to win the Tour as a teammate for the first time ever. But, whether that happens or not, and no matter how the rest of his time with Visma-Lease a Bike pans out, there’s a sense that anything after this Giro win is really just a bonus.
“I think I’m at the pinnacle of my career,” Yates said. “I don’t know how much better you can get from here.”
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