Giro d'Italia, Simon Yates takes the pink jersey on the Colle delle Finestre. In Rome the conclusion

Between the two quarrels, the third enjoys. Here is the twist you don't expect. The one that overturns all predictions. And which once again reaffirms that cycling is not an entirely calculable sport, all played out on algorithms, radios and computers. Because if it were, we would not be here to talk about the new winner of this Giro d'Italia, the Englishman Simon Yates, who with a surprise action, on the Colle delle Finestre, snatched the pink jersey from Isaac Del Toro, the young Mexican who had been leading the classification for eleven days. Del Toro had won it on stage 10, the Strade Bianche in Siena, and lost it again in the dust on the dirt road of the Colle delle Finestre, the deadly ramp with 45 hairpin bends that if you take it the way Yates took it, takes you straight to Paradise. A Paradise in pink that sounds like a great revenge for this 32-year-old rider who, on the Colle delle Finestre in 2018, had resoundingly lost the pink jersey and the Giro when he thought he had it in his grasp. Seven years later, almost like a nemesis, as if that dreadful crash had turned him into a life lesson, this shy and reserved champion, with tears in his eyes and a hoarse voice from emotion, took back the ill-gotten gains with a stunning action achieved with the drive of his heart and the cool lucidity of experience.

A famous maxim by a great English philosopher, Bernard Shaw, warns that men from experience never learn anything. Well, Simon Yates may not be as profound a thinker as Shaw, but he certainly learned that stern lesson in the 2018 Giro, which he has carried with him like a scar for the past seven years. In order to undermine Del Toro and also Carapz, from whom he was one minute and 21 seconds behind in the classification, the captain of Visma Leale e Bike invented a small masterpiece of tactics and cunning, letting them go to the wall on the Colle delle Finestre, where the two duellists, right from the first ramps, for the vehement attacks of Carapaz, fought hard. Like two boxers who want to strike the knockout blow in the last round. Only that the Colle delle Finestre is a long and exhausting climb, with the bike running backwards, which does not allow you to throw yourself into the fray, wasting precious energy that could come in handy in the last part, in that false slope that after the Colle leads to the finish at Sestriere. Well, Yates, who could count on the powerful help of his team-mate Van Aert up front, sent ahead with a group of fugitives - among whom emerged the stage winner, the Australian Chris Harper - Yates was able to count on this important point of reference and, once Del Toro and Carapz had let off steam, then sprinted off on his own, surprising his two rivals. They were too busy marking each other (are you going or am I?) and this allowed the Englishman to build up a considerable lead of around one minute and 40 seconds at the top of the climb. A good lead, certainly, but one that could be recovered on the descent and on the falsopiano that precedes the arrival at Sestriere. Here the blitz of the new pink jersey was completed. In fact, thanks to the support of Van Aert, a generous and powerful passer-by, Yates not only maintained his advantage but expanded it to more than five minutes. An enormity that makes it clear just how much Del Toro and Carapaz, on the eve of this stage alluded to as likely winners of the Giro, let a race that was almost in their grasp slip through their fingers. Del Toro probably paid the price for his young age (21 years old) and inexperience ("I'm happy with what I did anyway, this second place will serve me well for the future"), while Carapaz got his tactics wrong by playing all his cards right from the first slopes of the Colle delle Finestre, a climb that always makes the difference, as had already happened in the negative to Yates and in the positive to Chris Froome in 2018 and to Paolo Savoldelli in 2005. It's a junction, a sort of sieve, that doesn't mess around. This is where the Giro is made, and in fact this British rider, whom we had mistakenly called a 'staller', laid the foundations for his feat. An extraordinary feat, achieved on the very day of judgement, before moving on to Rome for the final stage that will also receive the blessing of Pope Leo 14.

If that of Yates, a brave little captain, was a feat that will remain in the long history of the Giro and cycling, it must also be said that his two rivals, Del Toro and Carapaz, and their teams, made an almost unforgivable error of judgement and strategy. "It was difficult to choose how to move, if we had put a man ahead maybe we would have missed him behind, but in these cases you always risk making a mistake..." said Mauro Gianetti, team principal of Uae Emirates, Del Toro's team that had always imposed control of the race so far. "However Simon Yates was unbelievable, he didn't follow the violent attack of Carapaz, and afterwards, thanks also to the help of Van Aert, he went to win this Giro taking a great revenge on this very climb. We couldn't do more, but we discovered a champion like del Toro, an intelligent champion that we like and who will give us a lot of satisfaction in the future'. All true, all right, the boy is only 21 years old. "He has the future in his hands," as Rafal Maika, a long-time Emirates lieutenant, observes. "You will see that he will come back here to win the Giro and also the Tour."

Perhaps, the premises are there, but to see a Giro slip away like that on practically the last day is not exactly the best. However, the great feat of Simon Yates remains. An astute and tenacious champion who knew how to wait and strike last.