Spectacular in the Alps: Yates wins Giro on the hellish pass where he lost his crown in 2018

It seemed that the Finestra Pass near Sestriere would forever remain a nightmare memory for Simon Yates from 2018, and then sport told another unforgettable story.

The Briton made a crucial breakaway on the same climb, one of the toughest in world cycling, that earned him the pink jersey in the final, decisive stage of the Giro d'Italia.

Tomorrow they will just walk triumphantly into Rome.

Yates entered the stage from Verres to Sestriere almost a minute and a half behind young Mexican Isaac del Toro, who has been in pink since the ninth stage, and will eventually have almost four minutes more than him in the general classification.

The fact that everything is irresistibly reminiscent of 2018, but now with a happy ending for Yates, is also evidenced by the fact that the guy from the Manchester area wore the pink jersey for 13 days before the race on the Finestra pass, but it was there that his compatriot Chris Froome "swallowed" him, took off his jersey and won the Giro.

"I'm not a very emotional person, but I couldn't hold back the tears. This is something I've worked on year after year and I've had a lot of failures, but I finally made it," Yates said.

Yates waited a long time for a new opportunity, and then he succeeded this year at the age of 33.

The Briton attacked 13 kilometers from the top of Finestre and slowly built a great triumph, and it seems that he was helped a lot by Del Toro, who was more attentive to what Richard Carapaz would do (he was only 40 seconds behind him before the last stage) and perhaps underestimated Yates a little. He and his experience or, more realistically, the wrong tactics of his Emirati team.

If the currently most powerful team in cycling had had more emotion, perhaps Del Toro would have managed to maintain his lead and the pink jersey until the end.

On the other hand, it was Jets' Visma team that did a great job, first and foremost Vut van Aert, who waited for his colleague on the descent and "built" a magnificent triumph together with him.

The winner of this stage was Kris Harper from Australia, but after the unforgettable images from the Finestra Pass, his triumph somehow remained in the background, as expected.

There is still the final stage through Rome and the Vatican, but it is known that it is mostly a showpiece and that Simon Yates and Visma can start celebrating.

This is the British cyclist's second grand tour crown after winning the Vuelta a España in 2018.