'Giro d'Italia win is the defining moment of my career' - Simon Yates turns his Grand Tour fortune around with historic win

Simon Yates had struggled to hold back the tears when he took the pink jersey in dramatic fashion on the Colle delle Finestre yesterday, but 24 hours later it was the smile he couldn’t keep from his face.

The 32-year-old Visma-Lease a Bike rider hailed his win at the Giro d’Italia as the “defining moment” of his career.

Speaking on TNT Sports on Sunday the Lancastrian said: “Honestly I think it’s still sinking in what a huge moment in my career it is. I’m incredibly proud of the whole team over the three weeks and I just finished it off.”

Yates won the race by a margin of just under four minutes to Isaac del Torro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) after he attacked on the gravel climb yesterday and met up with team-mate Wout Van Aert, who’d been in the day's break, to help power him all the way to the line.

Today, Yates added: “For sure the Giro win is the defining moment of my career there’s no doubt about that.”

Yates’s brother Adam, who was riding the Giro in support of Del Torro, told TNT Sports during the stage that he was “super happy” for his brother.

Adam Yates is set to ride the Tour de France in support of Tadej Pogačar in July and when asked if his brother should go to the Tour and work for Visma leader Jonas Vingegaard he joked: “If I was him, I’d be retiring right now.”

The new Giro champion, when asked about his plans, said: “I’ve had some good successes but I don’t think anything comes close to this. I’ll celebrate for sure and we’ll see what is to come.”

That celebration will likely be something of a family affair. Yates was met by his girlfriend after the finish line this evening, having revealed she’d missed her flight to the race yesterday because she was watching his Giro-winning attack. Simon also posed with his brother Adam’s young baby on the Giro podium.

Those celebrations have been a long time coming. Yates’s bombastic performance on Colle Delle Finestre, and his subsequent tears at the finish line, was redemption for his collapse on the same climb in 2018 just before Chris Froome launched his pink jersey-winning mountain raid, but it was also proof that he remains a Grand Tour force to be reckoned with.

A Grand Tour success a long time coming

Up to and including his spectacular 2018 campaign, the man from Bury had been tipped as among the most promising GC prospects of his generation. He had been steadily building his palmarès with a stage win at the Vuelta a España in 2016 and a top ten finish at the Tour de France in the young rider’s white jersey in 2017.

But since his remarkable run in the pink jersey in 2018 ,and claiming the Vuelta a España title later that year, his three-week race record has been marred by illness, injury and bad luck. At the same time a group of thrusting younger challengers including Pogačar and Vingegaard, have come to dominate the GC landscape. It had begun to look like Yates’s best chance of a further Grand Tour victory might have passed him by.

A year after his 2018 jour sans, Yates returned to the Giro hoping to banish its memory but crashed on stage four and a few days later had, by his own assessment, “a stinker” on stage nine losing over three minutes. While he’d claw his way back up the standings to finish eighth, he was never a major factor in the pink jersey fight for the rest of the race.

The following year he once again targeted the Giro during the Covid disrupted season; Yates would only make it through one week of the October race before testing positive for covid and having to leave.

2021 would be his fourth trip to the Giro and he battled valiantly with eventual winner Egan Bernal. But his overall victory hopes were dented on stage 16 when the race, shortened due to snowy weather, crossed the Passo Giau where the Lancastrian was distanced as Bernal stamped his authority on the race. He’d go on to take a swing at the win on the Alpe di Mera on stage 19, and although he won the stage, he couldn’t overhaul Bernal’s three minute lead.

But 2022 would prove to be his nadir at the Grand Tours. Yates had a promising start to the season finishing runner up at Paris-Nice and came into the Giro with high hopes and won the time trial on the second stage.

However, he injured his knee in a crash on stage four and although he was able to continue in the race he haemorrhaged over 11 minutes on the famous Blockhaus climb on stage nine. At the time he said: “It's causing me a lot of problems, so I stopped trying to hide it. It wasn't my only problem today. I really struggled in the heat again. That's how it goes." He'd go on to win another stage but then abandoned the race in the final week.

Trying to get back on track, Yates returned to the Vuelta for the first time since he won in 2018 but tested positive for Covid in the first week and left the race.

The 2023 season saw a change of tack as he targeted the Tour de France instead of the Giro. It appeared to revive his Grand Tour fortunes. On the race’s first day he staged a dramatic escape with his brother Adam, who ultimately won the stage and took the yellow jersey. Simon rode consistently and never fell out of the top ten ultimately finishing fourth, just behind his brother, though it became clear he was not a challenger to ultimate winner Vingegaard or second-placed rider Pogačar.

Yates returned to the Tour for a GC tilt again in 2024, but this visit proved less fruitful. He never made an impression on the race and lost nearly 10 minutes to eventual winner Tadej Pogačar on the gravel stage in the race’s first week.

Perhaps, at this point, Yates' Grand Tour GC days were behind him.

Redemption

A move to Visma-Lease a Bike at the end of the 2024 season seemed to confirm that he’d accepted a role as domestique de luxe to Vingegaard. Indeed, while the team pledged to allow Yates his own opportunities it emphasised he’d be “an asset in the mountains” for Vingegaard.

The start of the 2024 provided scant evidence Yates was set to re-capture his best form. He only raced twice before the Giro’s start in Albania and while he racked up a top ten finish in the Volta Catalunya he was over a minute behind Giro favourite Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and also behind Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers).

But if there was one thing Yates seems to have learned from many difficult or derailed campaigns since 2018, it was patience. In 2018 he’d been ravenous, gobbling up stage wins and sprinting for every second he could, and it had been thrilling to watch, but it also contributed to his eventual dethroning.

In 2025, he waited until the last possible moment to snatch this Giro. One last climb to show what he is capable of, on Saturday, the penultimate stage. A display at the location of his worst day to put the record straight.

Yates's career will likely be defined by the last three weeks. He won’t go down in history as one of the all-time greats of GC riding, but he might well be one of the most gritty, the most persistent and, importantly, the most patient.