At the end of a Giro d’Italia in which the pre-race favourites for the title have almost all fallen out of contention, it was perhaps inevitable that there would be one final twist. While Simon Yates went into the penultimate stage determined to chase away the memories that he’d been left with having lost the 2018 Giro on the slopes of the Colle de Finestre, few could have foreseen that the Briton would leapfrog race leader Isaac Del Toro and second-placed Richard Carapaz to claim the maglia rosa, least of all those two riders.
EF Education-EasyPost rider Carapaz stood slumped over his bike for some time after the stage finished, his disappointment palpable. When he eventually spoke to the media crowded in around him, the Ecuadorean said of Yates’s capture of the Giro title, “I don’t think that it was the strongest rider that won, but the most intelligent.”
