Giro d’Italia 2025 – 5 Things

The Giro wound up yesterday with a processional into Rome and crowned an unexpected but very worthy winner in Simon Yates. This was a nearly perfect Giro, contested in every stage, with drama on the penultimate day turning the story on its head. If you weren’t watching, here’s what you missed:

1. Simon Yates and Team Visma/Lease-a-Bike (TVL) Win Big – Team Visma/Lease-a-Bike executed the perfect tactical coup to land 32-year-old Yates on the top of the podium in Rome. Sending Wout van Aert up the road in the breakaway, meant Yates had one of the world’s strongest riders to launch him to Stage 20 victory with enough time to overhaul Richard Carapaz and Isaac del Toro behind. It was a bravura performance swinging more than 5 minutes on GC. No one saw that coming. So the GC win and 2 stages for Olaf Kooij (and another for van Aert) put TVL back at the front of the peloton after a disappointing Spring season. They should be really happy with themselves.
2. The Rise of Isaac del Toro – The 21-year-old Mexican was the revelation of this Giro. Of course, he will be disappointed to lose the pink jersey on the penultimate stage after wearing it for 10 days straight, but he had come into this race not even his team’s top GC rider. But he vanquished Juan Ayuso and put himself on the world stage as a real GC contender to watch. He walks away with the White, young rider’s jersey and a whole lot of credit in the bank. His win on stage 17 after falling apart the previous day shows he has the mettle to win a grand Tour. UAE Team Emirates have too many great riders.
3. Mads Pedersen and Lidl-Trek – Team Lidl-Trek’s Danish sprinter is at the top of his game. He owned the Sprinter’s jersey (the maglia ciclamino) and spent 5 days in the pink GC leader’s shirt too. His team added two more stage wins through Dan Hoole and Carlos Verona to round a successful all-around Giro campaign.
4. EF Education First and Richard Carapaz – Richard Carapaz is a quixotic sort of bike racer, a bit of a throwback. He races instinctually, lacking tactical discipline, and though you always get the sense he’s strong enough to win a grand tour (in fact he won the Giro in 2019 and was second in 2022), it’s only ever gonna be by accident. Still, he earned EF a lot of camera time including a stage win to go along with another from teammate Kasper Asgreen, and a third place on the podium keeps EF Education First punching above their weight.
5. A Few Disappointments – Primož Roglič was the favorite to win this race. He underperformed and then crashed out. Tom Pidcock came hunting stage wins to drag his Q36.5 team into the big time, but it didn’t come together. Juan Ayuso was hoping to be UAE’s main man but wasn’t. He also crashed out. With Tadej Pogačar skipping the Giro to focus on the Tour, the opportunities for season changing results are thin on the ground. Anyone wanting to add a Grand Tour GC to their palmares will be disappointed to have missed out in Italy.