"This is the Roglic group" - How perceived disrespect from race radio helped fuel Simon Yates' Giro d'Italia comeback
CyclingFriday, 06 June 2025 at 18:28
Throughout the 2025 Giro d'Italia, Team Visma | Lease a Bike's GC hopeful Simon Yates quietly went about his business, allowing his rivals to headlines. That was at least, until stage 20, where the Brit launched an incredible comeback win on the Colle delle Finestre, claiming the Maglia Rosa and taking a second Grand Tour win of his career.
Whilst going under the radar was all part of the plan for Yates and Visma, team sports director Jesper Morkov has revealed on the Cafe Eddy podcast his and the team's surprise at just how invisible Yates was during the Grand Tour. Even race radio wasn't safe from this, with one such example of perceived disrespect helping fuel the fires of motivation.
“On Radio Tour, when they name and group riders — ‘this is the Roglic group’ and so on — Simon Yates was never mentioned. Not even once," Morkov begins his recounting. "And this was while he was sitting third in the GC. It was almost funny how invisible he was. It was absolutely mad."
As mentioned though, in the third and final week, Yates began to force his way into the minds of viewers and experts. "He only started getting mentioned towards the end, but right up until the middle of last week, no one was talking about Simon Yates," continues Morkov, revealing how the fact even became a bit of an inside joke within Team Visma | Lease a Bike. "Among us sports directors, we even joked, ‘Is Simon here?’”
On stage 20 though, everything changed with a brutal acceleration on the same climb that had haunted Yates' Giro story since 2018. "We thought: ‘Okay, this might actually swing our way.’ If they’re going to pull a move like that and only focus on each other…” Morkov says of the much-discussed tactics by Yates' rivals Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz. “And then it worked — he created a gap and broke free from their battle. They kept attacking one another, and he could just sit back and pick his moment.”
🇮🇹 #GirodItalia
— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike) June 2, 2025
A special Italian celebration dinner last night with our riders, their families, and our staff. 🩷🍕 pic.twitter.com/5NTbqSSuXs
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- Thank you!parisbound0018-07-2025
- Similar was said about Paris Roubaix though so I'd say its very much possible if he feels good as Pogi said himself many times, he wants to race any race he can win while he can win as has no idea when he'll be 'old news'HoopoeChai18-07-2025
- Sit down Tyler - and keep quietCrashjames18-07-2025
- More whining from Remco 😂Crashjames18-07-2025
- With teammates like that, who needs competitors?Crashjames17-07-2025
- Seems that the Visma Plan of ‘22 didn’t work out this year, with Narváez still there at the end for Pogacar for UAE. The 11 days of pushing Pogacar had the effect of tiring the wrong team.RidesHills17-07-2025
- Full nattyAss-Master-Dirk17-07-2025
- All the epoAss-Master-Dirk17-07-2025
- Crickets today on Healy's interference yesterday; like it never happened. I don't care and will continue to voice my opinion. Tadej can thank Healy for his win today. If Healy had let Stage 11 play itself out, without his interference, we would have had a true and honest Stage 11 outcome which would have drastically effected today's results. Jonas would still have a fighting chance. Things need to change going forward!parisbound0017-07-2025
- Visma put the pace for Tadej. After 12 stages only saw Nills and Almeida working for UAE. Today we had a glimpse of Narvaez. The team is rested.
PAULO17-07-2025
They don’t half come up with some crap to turn events into stories. Problem is, if all this was true and so influential, that means 1. Riders are lacking inherent motivation and possibilities for motivation, 2. it’s due to race radio chatter he won and 3. They were lucky no attention was given and race radio didn’t mention him. In fact you are basically admitting outside influence skewed the race and if it works, this technique might get exploited commercially in future by corrupt or biased staff, rivals and officials. So c’mon guys, let’s stay a little factual coz otherwise you’re only going to shoot yourselves in the feet.
Glad it worked for Yates, I don't believe for 1 second that UAE would conduct themselves like so with Pog. #noway
He was evidently not considered a threat by Carapaz and del Toro, either, until it was too late.