Simon Yates won the Giro d’Italia after an epic climb from third place to race leader by a comfortable margin on Saturday’s decisive mountain stage.
Yates, the 2018 Vuelta a Espana champion from Great Britain, overcame an 81-second deficit and took a 3:56 lead in the overall standings after 20 of 21 stages.
He maintained that advantage on Sunday’s flat, 89-mile finale around Vatican City and Rome. He met Pope Leo XIV before riding the last stage.
“It’s a defining moment of my career, there’s no doubt about that,” Yates said of the Grand Tour crown. “I’ve had some good successes, but I don’t think anything comes close.”
Yates seized the first Grand Tour of 2025 on Saturday’s 11-mile Colle delle Finestre, the same Cottian Alps climb where he was dropped on the 19th stage of the 2018 Giro, going from leader to 35 minutes behind.
This time, Yates finished third on the day behind Australian stage winner Chris Harper.
In the overall standings, Yates overtook both Richard Carapaz of Ecuador and Isaac del Toro, the leader for 11 stages whose hopes of becoming the first cyclist from Mexico to win a Grand Tour were extinguished.
“Quite emotional, to be honest,” Yates said Saturday, giving way to tears. “Something I’ve worked towards -- the Giro itself -- many, many years. A lot of setbacks. I had an idea today to try something and managed to pull it off.”
Del Toro, who was smiling after Saturday’s stage, still became the first cyclist from Mexico to finish on a Grand Tour podium.
“When you’re winning one race and you lose, of course it’s disappointed, but you need to realize how big is this,” said del Toro, a 21-year-old in his second career Grand Tour. “Yeah, it’s not easy.”
Del Toro was bidding to become the youngest man to win the Giro since 1940 — when Italian Fausto Coppi earned the first of his record-tying five titles — according to ProCyclingStats.com.
Del Toro was already the first cyclist from Mexico to wear the leader jersey in any of the three Grand Tours — Giro, Tour de France and Vuelta.
When Yates made the decisive attack with eight miles to the summit, he was joined by neither del Toro nor Carapaz (who was 43 seconds behind del Toro going into the stage).
Del Toro said he talked with Carapaz about how to respond to Yates, and that Carapaz did not want to work together to reel in the Brit. Del Toro in turn didn’t want to do the work himself and risk Carapaz later overtaking him and pushing the Mexican into third overall.
So Yates became the second British rider to win multiple Grand Tours after Chris Froome, who won all three, including four Tours de France.
Since that 2018 Vuelta title, Yates placed third in the 2021 Giro and fourth in the 2023 Tour.
“I’ve had the Giro as a goal for numerous years, numerous attempts,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’ve always come up short, but not today.”
Yates’ seven-year gap between two Grand Tour titles is the longest since Italian Felice Gimondi won the 1969 and 1976 Giros. And the longest between a rider’s first and second Grand Tour titles specifically since Coppi won the 1940 and 1947 Giros (with World War II in between).
Yates, 32, also gave Team Visma–Lease a Bike its first Grand Tour title since the outfit swept the Giro, Tour and Vuelta with three different riders in 2023, an unprecedented feat.
Yates joined Visma this season after spending 11 years with an Australian team.
Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, who last year won his first Giro and his third Tour de France, didn’t ride this year’s Giro as he focuses on prep for July’s Tour.
Slovenian Primož Roglic, the 2023 Giro winner and four-time Vuelta champ, led after the second and seventh stages of this Giro, but abandoned on the 16th after the last of several crashes during the Giro.
2025 Giro d’Italia Final Standings
1. Simon Yates (GBR) — 82:31:01
2. Isaac del Toro (MEX) — +3:56
3. Richard Carapaz (ECU) — +4:43
4. Derek Gee (CAN) — +6:23
5. Damiano Caruso (ITA) — +7:32
6. Giulio Pellizzari (ITA) — +9:28
7. Egan Bernal (COL) — +12:42
8. Einer Rubio (COL) — +13:05
9. Brandon McNulty (USA) — +13:36
10. Michael Storer (AUS) — +14:27
