Wiggins: Yates is now the clear favourite to win this Giro d’Italia

Bradley Wiggins has been analyzing the Giro d'Italia for Eurosport, and the former Tour de France winner has been an active voice in terms of what may happen throughout the race. After the victory of Simon Yates in the Budapest time-trial, he affirmed confidence that his compatriot may take the overall win.

"It wasn't enough to take the pink jersey but what I think is most interesting is this is clearly an indicator now that Simon Yates is here to win this Giro d’Italia in three weeks' time," Wiggins said. Simon Yates took a surprising win, with three seconds over Mathieu van der Poel, and has placed himself in pole position for the GC riders before they head into the mountains this Tuesday. 

“Remember, Simon isn't a time trial specialist but to execute a performance like that over a course like this shows he is now the clear favourite to win this Giro d’Italia." With the long mountain stages ahead, Saturday's time-trial will be close to meaningless, but may have an effect on which climbers will take a hold of the pink jersey. 

It's a bit too early to call him an overwhelming favourite... The talk will now start, especially from the rivals, the doubters, the supporters of other riders, like, ‘here we go again, he's doing it again, he's too good too soon’," he added. Back in 2018, Yates started the Giro d'Italia in dominating fashion, however it is necessary for the race to hit the mountains for the GC riders to have a true gauge of where they stand in terms of form. 

"But whatever the case, he's done a fantastic ride, he can enjoy the victory and the time trial today, and I think he will have learned a lot of lessons from how he tackled the Giro before, and then came up a bit too short at the end. He can afford to not be as aggressive as he was that other time at the Giro," he concluded.