Yates's Giro dreams left in tatters

Brit drops out of GC contention, writes Vern Pitt

- Vern Pitt

The final few hundred metres of tarmac on the Blockhaus climb are cracked, broken, and scarred, the unforgiving weather and wear taking its toll. But it was the cracks at the foot of the mountain that would prove decisive for Simon Yates’s Giro d’Italia GC hopes.

The much-reduced peloton had only just started to ascend the famous Italian climb on stage nine when the BikeExchange-Jayco leader drifted off the back of the group. He fought valiantly to start with but as the GC favorites started to fire shots at each other, the gap between him and any hope of claiming the pink jersey opened. By the time he crested the mountain, made famous by Eddy Merckx’s victory there on its Giro debut in 1967, he was 11.15 behind stage winner Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe).

He knew the consequences, telling Cycling Weekly sister publication Cycling News: “I lost the race.”

Much like the tarmac at the top, it was the weather – the temperature was around 26°C in the shade – that had taken its toll on Yates. “I really struggled in the heat again,” he told the press. It appeared a recurrence of the same heat-related struggles he experienced on stage two of the Vuelta an Asturias at the end of last month. Then, he and the team had hoped it was a one-off, a case of acclimatisation. At that time, sports director Matt White said: “Traditionally he suffers with the first shock of high temperatures and humidity in the season, and we have now got that out of the way.” But he suffered again on Sunday.