Pink tears and successful plans. Simon Yates wins the Giro d'Italia

On a late May afternoon when dark clouds chased the sun that warmed the heads and shoulders of the riders of the Giro d'Italia 2025, reaching him only in the last few hundred meters before the finish, Simon Yates got it into his head that these three weeks of racing should not end with the shadow of a regret. After all, he had nothing to lose. At almost thirty-three years old, after having won thirty or so races, stages in all three major tours, after having won a Vuelta, it would not be a podium that would change things, that would upset the accounts with his career. A pink jersey, however, yes. A pink jersey was a good reason to run the risk of stepping off the podium.

He had gotten up early in the morning, one minute and twenty-one seconds behind Isaac Del Toro. Above all, with the idea in his head that, if things had gone badly, he had done his part. And that it was better to be disappointed today than to pedal the next few days, months, years with the doubt that he could have written another finale to the Giro d'Italia 2025 .

Not even when Richard Carapaz's teammates started to set a hellish pace on the first ramps of the Colle delle Finestre did he change his mind.

And not even when Richard Carapaz had sprinted, trying to embrace as soon as possible a mountain solitude that should have brought him to Rome wearing the pink jersey, did he get agitated. There was still an absolute serenity in his face, the calm of someone who knew that it was necessary to give himself time, the right amount of time.

He knew that the race would not be decided on the hardest part of the Cima Coppi, the first one, but higher up. Because the slopes hurt the calves, but it is just before the dirt road that the air with less and less oxygen begins to bother. And so he had not rushed to return, he had pedaled at the pace of others, before accelerating and finding his own.

He knew all this well. In 2018, on the Colle delle Finestre, he had begun to experience the worst day of his career. He had seen, pedal stroke after pedal stroke, the pink jersey he was wearing fade, while he heard in his headphones about Chris Froome's solo feat .

When he reached Richard Carapaz and Isaac Del Toro, Simon Yates decided that the past did not matter and that there was a here and now to live. Above all, a pink jersey to take back.

It was taken four times. The first three shots were missed: taken. The fourth was not.

The fourth was the beginning of a new journey. A journey that took him first to the top of the Colle delle Finestre, then to Sestrière. That led him to the pink jersey. To victory in the Giro d'Italia .

Only in the last two hundred meters before the finish line did Simon Yates' face relax. Only then did his face lose its determination, it relaxed with amazement and sweetness. He looked back to make sure he really didn't have someone on his tail. Then he abandoned himself to a calm, almost humble joy. That of someone who, deep down, didn't believe it could really happen.

Simon Yates cried.

He cried because sometimes only tears can express the purest joy. Because only tears can fill the void of thoughts and words that can't come out because too many would like to come out. Because tears, after all, are the refuge of joy when you're not a jerk by nature. And he has never been a jerk.

He cried because the team believed in it more than he did, he said, because they told him not to give up and he didn't give up.

They believed in Team Visma | Lease a bike. Wout van Aert especially believed in it. The Belgian had gone on the run in the morning, had worked, and not a little, to let the vanguards take an advantage. He had dropped away at the first attacks of the others. He wasn't there to win. He was there to make them win. At that point he had climbed with the right pace to wait for his teammate after the Cima Coppi . Not a gamble. Just trust. Trust rewarded. Wout van Aert put himself at the service of the Englishman , he gave him all his energy between Poumieres and Pragelato, he extended the two-minute advantage that Simon Yates had built up alone on the Colle delle Finestre.

Behind Isaac Del Toro limped more with his head than his legs; behind Richard Carapaz he had understood that everything was over, that his pink dream had evaporated.

In front Chris Harper was uncatchable. First, first victory at the Giro d'Italia and what's more in the most fascinating stage of the race. In front Alessandro Verre resisted the pursuit of the Englishman, crossing the finish line in second.

In solidarity with the riders who run the Giro d'Italia, here we decided to tell the stages of the Giro d'Italia doing their same hard work: a letter per meter of altitude difference. Here is the story of the twentieth stage, Verrès-Sestrière, 2025 kilometers and 4,5'00 meters of altitude difference, in 4,500 characters (spaces included).

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