For every super-talent like Tadej Pogacar, every young star like Isaac del Toro, are several figures like Simon Yates. In a sport that is all too quick to leap on the newest, brightest and youngest talent, Yates’s Giro d’Italia title was a victory of hard graft, of fighting through adversity, a very human rider exorcising his demons and earning the sweetest of rewards.
The 32-year-old has gone through heartbreak at this race. The maglia rosa was his to lose in 2018, and lose it he did as illness – and Chris Froome – struck at the worst possible time.
