Briton Simon Yates attacked the final of today’s 19th stage of the Giro d’Italia and held on to deliver Team BikeExchange a spectacular solo stage victory, displaying his great strength in the third and final week of this year’s tour.
After Team BikeExchange worked relentlessly throughout the 166-kilometre stage, Yates repaid his teammates with the victory atop the first category climb, Alpe di Mera, the penultimate summit finish of the 2021 Giro d’Italia.
The 2018 Vuelta a España champion accelerated to follow a move by Joãn Almeida with six kilometres to go, making the catch and then launching a damaging acceleration on his Bianchi Specialissima one kilometre later. The injection of speed saw Yates charge away solo, with none of his general classification rivals able to respond.
Race leader Egan Bernal quickly lost 20 seconds to the 28-year-old, but with Ineos Grenadiers pacing the Maglia Rosa, the gap to Yates remained within 20 to 30 seconds all the way towards the finish line.
Fighting all the way, Yates was able to hold off Joãn Almeida by 11 seconds to take the stage 19 honours; the eighth Grand Tour stage victory of his career.
With time gaps on the line and the addition of 10 bonus seconds for the win, the Team BikeExchange rider moves closer to the Maglia Rosa, now sitting two minutes and 49 seconds adrift, with two hard stages still remaining.
Simon Yates – Stage 19 winner
“I am really happy, the team did a fantastic job today, really controlled the start, worked a lot and I managed to finish it off, so I am really very happy.
I saw that the boys from Ineos were happy to ride tempo behind (Almeida) and I had a feeling that they would let me go today. As soon as I attacked, I saw that that was correct, so I just tried to ride full gas and that was it.
I tried to do my best today, it wasn’t the most difficult of stages, it was just a very difficult final climb, but tomorrow is very different. It is a very hard stage, back in the high altitude so we will see what I can do, I am just doing my best at the moment and I am happy with the stage win.”
Matt White – Head Sport Director
“We are very happy. It was very big team effort to control the stage and to put Simon into a position where could do his thing on the final climb.
The last couple of days we have only been looking forwards not backwards, and if we want to go any higher on the general classification, which we do, we had to try to put our rivals under pressure today. The boys did a good job by making the day hard and solid all through the stage.
Simon rode a very aggressive final climb. A very well-deserved win and he put some more time into his rivals.”
2021 Giro d’Italia stage 19 results:
- Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange) 4:02:55
- Joan Almeida +0:11
- Egan Bernal +0:28
General Classification after stage 19:
- Egan Bernal 81:13:37
- Damiano Caruso +2:29
- Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange) +2:49
