Giro d'Italia 2025: Simon Yates crowned champion as Visma-Lease a Bike team-mate Olav Kooij wins final stage in Rome
Updated 01/06/2025 at 20:01 GMT+1
Britain’s Simon Yates was crowned champion of the 2025 Giro d’Italia on Sunday after coming through the final stage in Rome unscathed. Yates’ superb Visma-Lease a Bike team put on a masterclass in the Eternal City as Dutchman Olav Kooij soared to his second win of the race in a thrilling bunch sprint alongside the Circus Maximus.
Watch: Kooij takes Stage 21 as Simon Yates completes Giro win on perfect day for Visma
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The dust had hardly settled from Simon Yates’ sensational ride into the pink jersey in Sestriere when the Briton’s Visma-Lease a Bike team put the cherry on the top of an exquisite Giro d’Italia cake, with a second win for their Dutch sprinter Olav Kooij in the final stage in Rome.
After another superb lead-out from the ever-dependable Wout van Aert and Edoardo Affini, Kooij beat Australia’s Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Italy’s Matteo Moschetti (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) for a commanding win besides the historic Circus Maximus in the Eternal City.
But all eyes were on Yates as the 32-year-old rider from Lancashire secured the second Grand Tour victory of his career following his earlier triumph in the Vuelta a Espana in 2018.
Seven years after he dramatically relinquished the pink jersey on the gravel slopes of the Colle delle Finestre, Yates had returned to the scene of the crime to put things right on Saturday.
He set a record time on the lofty Alpine peak as he came full circle by wrestling the maglia rosa from the shoulders of Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
Yates then navigated eight laps of a technical city centre loop in Rome to secure the famous Trofeo Senza Fine and draw a line under his emotional rollercoaster of a relationship with the Giro – a race that has regularly thwarted his ambitions in testing circumstances, but a race that he has now won at the sixth attempt.
After conceding the pink jersey to Yates in Sestriere on Saturday, Mexican tyro Del Toro finished second in his maiden Giro, almost four minutes behind.
The 2019 champion from Ecuador, Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) came third at 4:43, with Canada’s Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) and Italy’s Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) completing the top five.
For all the disappointment of losing the Giro at the last hurdle after 11 glorious days in pink, Del Toro wrote himself into the history books as the youngest stage winner in the maglia rosa this century and the first Mexican stage winner in 23 years – all this in only his second Grand Tour in a race where he took over UAE’s leadership duties from Juan Ayuso and Adam Yates.
"I’m super proud of my performance these three weeks," an upbeat Del Toro said. "I think I showed to everyone that I can do it and more important I showed myself that I can do it. The team was always with me, giving me confidence, and it was incredible to show all the performances I can do. It was like a dream. If someone said before that I would finish second [in the Giro] you would laugh."
Despite winning six stages in the Giro prior to this year’s 108th edition, Yates became the first Giro winner in a decade not to win a stage during the race – a feat last achieved by Alberto Contador in 2015.
Del Toro, 21, won the white jersey as best young rider, while Denmark’s Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) won the maglia ciclamino and Italy’s Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana) the maglia azzurra.
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‘Really significant moment’ – Giro riders granted audience with the Pope ahead of final stage
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Ahead of Stage 21, the race’s four jersey winners were presented to Leo XIV in the grounds of the Vatican as the new Pope blessed all the riders in the peloton before the 144km final leg of the Giro.
Stage 21 took the riders to the Roman port of Ostia and back ahead of eight laps of a challenging 9.5km city centre circuit that took in landmarks such as the Colosseum, the Forum, the eye-catching Vittorio Emanuele II Monument, and the banks of the river Tiber.
Once the racing began, a break of six riders did their best to cause an upset and hold the peloton at bay. A technical course that featured twists and turns, several cobbled sections, and some punchy ramps, all made for a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse.
Michael Hepburn (Jayco-AlUla), Alessandro Verre (Arkea-B&B Hotels), Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ), Josef Cerny (Soudal Quick-Step), Andrea Pietrobon (Polti VisitMalta) and Martin Marcellusi (Bardiani CSF) combined well but their maximum lead of 30 seconds never looked likely to go the distance.
And so it proved. Czech rider Cerny was the last man caught with 6km remaining before the teams of the sprinters flocked to the front to prepare for the bunch sprint.
Wearing a special black-and-pink limited-edition jersey, Visma-Lease a Bike came to the fore entering the final kilometre – with Affini and then Van Aert setting up Kooij for an emphatic win.
It was the ideal ending to a race which started in tricky circumstances but ended with Kooij and Van Aert snaring three wins and Yates being crowned champion.
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Van Aert reacts after helping Visma team-mates claim final Stage win and overall Giro crown
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"We couldn’t wish for a better final weekend," Kooij said. "Yesterday was really amazing for the team so today I really had to give everything that was left in the legs. Again, the team made it a lot easier – I just had to push it to the line.
"We really committed with the whole team first to make it a sprint and then with Edo and Wout – they just went all in and we were in a perfect position and I was happy to make it to the line.
"I’m happy with this Giro and making it to Rome and winning here makes it more special."
But it was a bittersweet victory for Visma-Lease a Bike, who announced the sad news that the wife of their former rider Robert Gesink, Daisy, had passed away from an illness the same day Yates put on his masterful turnaround on the Colle delle Finestre.
Before the stage, an emotional Yates spoke of the "ups and downs" that peppered his experiences with a race that has seen him thwarted by illness, crashes and sudden collapses - most notably the implosion on the Colle delle Finestre in his debut in 2018 that saw him concede over half and hour and drop to 17th place just days from the finish.
"I feel like a lot of people can resonate with the story – you know, losing the race a long time ago now in 2018, and the way I’ve managed to take it yesterday, it’s really touched a lot of people, I think," he said.
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‘Defining moment of my career’ – Simon Yates reflects on ‘amazing’ Giro d’Italia triumph
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On whether he had always planned to rewrite the history books by closing a chapter on the Finestre, Yates added: "I just needed the right moment.
"I always had the hope that I could do something, but I never really believed it could happen."
Belief or no belief, Yates became the third British winner of the Giro in the last eight years – after Chris Froome in 2018 and Tao Geoghegan Hart in 2020.
His focus will now switch to supporting team-mate Jonas Vingegaard in his bid to win a third Tour de France in July.
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