"They prepared the ground for him" - Alberto Contador scolds Carapaz for Isaac del Toro's Giro d'Italia defeat

The 20th and penultimate stage of the Giro d'Italia 2025 was one of the best grand tour stages you will ever see. When it seemed that we were destined to a duel between Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz, Simon Yates got in the middle and snatched the maglia rosa away.

The British Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider took advantage of the fight between the two Latin Americans to attack on the Finestre and leave them to waste time playing cat and mouse.

After the stage, Alberto Contador told Eurosport what he saw, "Yes, let's see. With a pass as hard as Colle delle Finestre, many things could happen and whoever had a good day, as in this case Simon Yates, could make the difference. I think the strategy of EF was also a determining factor.

"It's true that what they've done I think has really benefited Simon Yates, they prepared the ground for him. In fact, when Richard started, Simon was calm, he let him do it, Derek Gee did a great job. And then he did start to test, but we saw that he had very good legs. He was very angry yesterday at the end of the stage, Simon Yates was very angry with his team's tactics, he said that nothing had been done that had been talked about in the bus and that's because he had confidence in himself," he added.

Simon Yates finally won the Giro d'Italia, the second Grand Tour of his career, 3:56 ahead of Isaac del Toro and 4:43 ahead of Richard Carapaz. The 32-year-old Briton thus enters an exclusive club of riders who have won both the Giro and the Vuelta a España. And to make things more impressive, the victories happened 7 years apart!