Simon Yates was close to conquering the Giro d’Italia back in 2018, but then lost it on the Colle delle Finestre. In a theatrical way, the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider managed to win the overall classification of this year’s Corsa Rosa on the same mountain. He recalls that day, where he outplayed and outperformed Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz to take the pink jersey.
Previously, Yates was in the mix, but the true battle was that between Carapaz and Del Toro, who looked the two strongest climbers in the race. The latter had struggled on a couple occasions in the longer climbs, and so Carapaz decided to attack the climb right from the bottom, and put the pressure on the UAE Team Emirates – XRG rider immediately. Then came along Simon Yates a few kilometers later, as the two did not collaborate and eventually Carapaz slowed down on the steep slopes of the Finestre. Then began a sequence of attacks from both Carapaz and Yates.
“I said to my sports director ‘I need these guys to look at each other. I need a gap’. I think that was my only chance. I’d tried to drop them earlier in the race, and if anything, they were stronger than me.” Yates said in a panel at Rouleur Live. “I needed that moment of hesitation. I knew Carapaz had already won the Giro, and so a second or third place doesn’t matter to him. So, it all fell into place for me.”
Yates attacked several times without pursuit of Carapaz, and then eventually, Del Toro also decided not to follow along. “When I was initiating the attacks, there wasn’t much chat from the car. But when I had the gap, I needed to know if they were together because if they were together, they would be riding slower. I was screaming down the radio”.
The Wout van Aert factor Yates had the legs, and then benefited from Visma’s tactics, with Wout van Aert holding on ahead of the GC men until the top of the Colle delle Finestre and then pacing for Yates. Incomprehensibly, neither EF or UAE had the same tactics, despite most of their men not having use in the day’s team tactics.
“Wout being there, I think it cracked the other two,” Yates believes. With Carapaz not working with Del Toro after the climb, the two simply stopped, and a gap of minutes was reated. “It wasn’t just his physical power, it was the mental aspect. Them hearing ‘Simon’s joined Wout’. Those two are already fighting, they were already not friends”.
Yates and Van Aert in the final stage of the Giro. @Sirotti