118 CHA

Simon Yates was blessed by the Pope before leaving the last stage of the turnlike the rest of the juggard. Like Nairo Quintana, very believer, who took advantage of the moment to be left behind in the neutralized exit and chat with the Holy Father.

Actually, Yates was already blessed since Saturday when the rematch of what happened in 2018 was takenmany years ago, when the world had not even suffered a pandemic and Chris Froome was the best cyclist in the world. The Port of Finestre was then its grave in a turn that had dominated from beginning to end, with an exhibition behind another. But In Fur until disappearing from the first positions of the general.

The return compensated for months later with his first triumph in a great. Enric more escort him on the podium And then much more than the two was expected. But on the return of the following year the world discovered Tadej Pogacar and nothing was again as it was.

Yates already had his big one, but he had a pending account with the turn and for final. «When I saw the stage I already had in mind doing something here and closing the chapter. I was speechless for having succeeded. I felt good throughout the race, but I never felt that it was the right time to prove it. Today I found the opportunity. It’s a fairy tale, I can’t believe I finished», He said after his victory in the penultimate stage, before the walk through the Vatican and in Rome.

“What story you are writing,” they told him from his team’s car. The British finished off a team strategy similar to the one that led them to end Tadej Pogacar in the 2022 tour and deliver the victory to Jonas Vingegaard. The tactic was inspired by the Erik Ten Hag’s football strategythen Ajax coach. The Dutch coach race has suffered a strong blow after directing Manchester United, but his tactics continue to triumph on the bicycle.

Yates finished a choral work in which his partner had a definitive importance Wout van Aert. The Belgian is one of the cyclists who has marked the cycling of recent years, although in the end he has had to surrender to the superiority of Van der Poel, his great rival from Cadets, in all land.

Van Aert, which was already important in that Vingegaard victory in the 2022 Tour, has managed to adapt, as he demonstrated last year in the Vuelta, where before a fall caused his withdrawal, he was the owner of the jersey of the points and of the regularity. In the turn it has not won any stage, but After helping Yates to win the general on Saturday, he took the Esprínter del Visma, Olav Kooij, to win in Rome The last stage of the race. A special triumph for him and for his team, which he dressed in black in the last stage and kept a minute of silence before starting the stage for the death of his partner Robert Gesink.

Yates and visma have defeated the best team in the world, the UAE, but within that structure is not sadness. One of the cyclists with which the Emirates team aspired to win the turn was Adam, Simon’s twin brother. They always ran together until Adam abandoned in 2020 the Australian structure that was then called Mitchelton Scott to sign ineos. This is the first year that Simon runs in Visma. Together they celebrated through the streets of Rome. Adam, despite being rivals in the race and that a partner was the great victory for Simon’s victory, dared to wear pink glasses of his brother on the walk through the Italian capital.

Simon, then, was already aware that the turn had really returned him, what had stolen him in 2018. And he was already blessed by the Pope.

Two stage and disaster victories in the general

► The fall of Mikel Landa in the first stage did not announce anything good for Spanish cycling in this turn. The sensations changed with Juan Ayuso’s victory in the seventh, but the first impression was the good and only Carlos Verona’s partial victory managed to contradict her. Ayuso retired, defeated by the road and the wasps, who riddled him. And Spain ran out of options for someone to follow the path that marked Indurain and accountant and be the third Spanish to get the victory in the general of the Giro.