While Chris Harper won alone in Sestrières during the 20th stage of the Giro, Simon Yates took advantage of the neutralization between Isaac Del Toro and Richard Carapaz to fly away and tear off the pink jersey on the eve of the final arrival in Rome.
Finestre dellews have been the justice of the peace of this Giro 2025. On the dirt roads, an unexpected scenario took place and he saw Simon Yates successfully played to seize the pink leading jersey of the general classification 24 hours from the final arrival in Rome. A stage that also saw the breakaway go to the end, with Chris Harper who lifted his arms by winner to Sestrières.
With the main difficulties gathered in the second half of the route, the escape candidates quickly revealed their game. Dries de Bondt and Enzo Paleni were among the first to get out of the peloton, imitated by the winner of the 19th stage this Friday Nico Denz. Over the kilometers, several clusters of runners have left against. The different junctions thus made it possible to form a breakaway of 32 runners in which Wout Van Aert, Mads Pedersen, Rémy Rochas, Quentin Pacher, Chris Harper, Pello Bilbao or Mirco Maestri were able to slip.
The peloton led by the EF Education-Easypost team ended up giving the green light to this escape, the gap reaching the eight minutes as the first slopes of the del Lys glue, the second difficulty of the day. If the ascent did not pose big problems, it is the descent that could have changed everything. Indeed, in a right turn, Richard Carapaz and several of his teammates drew straight but, fortunately for them, they narrowly avoided the fall before regaining room in the peloton.
S.yates, a winning bet
The long valley between the end of the descent of the glue del lys and the foot of the finely delight glue saw Mads Pedersen impose an intense tempo on the breakaway with the objective of digging the gap as maximum and allowing fugitives to play the stage victory in Sestrières. The objective was reached since the large leading group approached the “Cima Coppi”, the highest summit in this Giro 2025, with a margin greater than ten minutes on a peloton that quickly increased the pace.
Indeed, Richard Carapaz had a plan in mind and made him execute from the first hectometers of the climb. The Equatorian was launched by his teammates, attacking 42 kilometers from the finish. Isaac del Toro then Simon Yates were able to return to the winner of the 2019 edition of the Tour of Italy. It was then the Briton who played his card by placing a start to take a few seconds ahead of his opponents in the general classification.
At that time, Richard Carapaz played an intriguing tactical game by not driving to force the wearer of the pink jersey to exhaust his forces to return to the runner of the Visma-Lease A Bike team, who had revenge to take on this collar, who had seen him lose the Giro in 2018. Except that Isaac del Toro did not fall into the trap and the miscryumm. Has allowed Simon Yates to dig more the gap, to the point of becoming a virtual pink jersey before the top of fine fine glue.
Harper was able to savor
On the grounds of earth characteristic of this ascent, the Equatorian lost patience and began to ride to return less than two minutes from the runner of the Visma-Lease A Bike team when diving into the descent. At the forefront, a duo composed of Chris Harper and Alessandro Verre was able to distance the rest of the breakaway before the Australian flies away alone at the top of the race.
In the race for the final victory, Simon Yates received weight support when he returned to Wout Van Aert, who took him in the last kilometers of the descent and then on the valley leading to Sestrières. In contrast, Isaac Del Toro and Richard Carapaz tended more to observe themselves than to collaborate. This did the business of the Visma-Lease A Bike team runner, who saw his gap go from two to four minutes at the foot of the final ascent. A sign that the pace was not intense, several groupings took place with Giulio Pellizzari, Rafal Majka or Kevin Geniets who returned to the wearer of the pink jersey.
From the foot of the final climb, Simon Yates left alone to overthrow this Giro 2025. At the top of the race, Chris Harper was able to savor a prestige victory in front of Alessandro Verre and Simon Yates. To play too much with Richard Carapaz, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team forgot the Briton and lost a pink jersey that seemed promised to Isaac Del Toro. A scenario which promises a serious explanation in the Emirati training, which sees a second consecutive victory on the Giro after that of Tadej Pogacar last year.
