Giro d’Italia Stage 20 Race Report: Simon Yates set the 2025 Giro d’Italia on fire on the penultimate stage. The Visma | Lease a Bike rider attacked on the Colle delle Finestre, where he lost his leader’s jersey in 2018. Towards Sestriere, Yates had the help of Wout van Aert and then soloed to the finish and the overall lead. Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and the pink jersey Isaac Del Toro (UAE Emirates-XRG) lost time on the flying Yates. The stage victory went to early escapee Chris Harper (Jayco AlUla).
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Stage 20 finish
The penultimate stage of the Giro d’Italia crosses a number of mythical climbs and finishes uphill. The stage has four climbs, the last three of which are in the second half of the stage. The Corio (6.5km at 3.7%) and Colle del Lys (13.7km at 4.2%) are ‘easy’ compared to the final two mountains on the stage.
Stage 20 profile
Stage 20 map
That penultimate climb is a killer. The last 8 kilometres of the Colle delle Finestre (18.4km at 9.2%!) are on a rough surface and extremely steep. It is the Cima Coppi, the highest mountain climb of 2025. This is followed by a descent of 12 kilometres and the final climb of 16 kilometres at an average of 3.8% to Sestriere. At that point we should know the winner of this year’s Giro d’Italia.
The last tough stage for Isaac Del Toro to hold the lead
From the start in Verrès, the stage was fairly flat, so riders attacked from the gun. Dries De Bondt was joined by Timo Kielich (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Sylvain Moniquet (Cofidis), Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ), Kim Heiduk (INEOS Grenadiers), Jacopo Mosca (Lidl-Trek) and Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal Quick-Step). Mads Pedersen, who was fighting with De Bondt in the intermediate sprint classification.
The peloton leaves Verrès for the final ‘decisive’ stage
The early break seemed to have taken shape, but the peloton wasn’t happy. Wout van Aert wanted to be in the break. The Visma | Lease a Bike rider eventually crossed to the leading group with 16 others. There were now 31 men at the front. With Van Aert was: De Bondt, Kielich and Moniquet, Quinten Hermans & Jimmy Janssens (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Milan Vader (Q36.5). Carlos Verona (Lidl-Trek), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) and Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda (Movistar) were the best climbers in the break.
The mountains wait
At the first intermediate sprint, De Bondt was first, ahead of Pedersen, who didn’t sprint too hard. The Belgian took the lead in the intermediate sprint classification. The leading group then crossed the Corio (6.5km at 3.7%) and the Colle del Lys (13.7km at 4.2%) together. Their lead, which had been almost 9 minutes, began to slowly come down. In the peloton, Richard Carapaz’s EF Education-EasyPost set the pace.
Wout van Aert wanted to be in the break again
The lead of the escapees increased again to the start of the Colle delle Finestre, up to 10 minutes. Among the leaders, at the front there was a duel between Van Aert and De Bondt at the intermediate sprint. Van Aert won, but De Bondt was second and Pedersen didn’t get involved. The Dane then went on the front for his teammate, Carlos Verona on the first kilometres of the Finestre. Pedersen’s work helped Verona, Bilbao and others to break away.
Richard Carapaz will have to attack today
Rémy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ) then attacked. A first attempt, which was quickly followed by Chris Harper (Jayco AlUla). The Australian was then joined by Alessandro Verre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels). The two rode most of the climb together. A few kilometres from the top, Harper dropped his Italian companion and was first to cross the summit.
Two pelotons
Behind in the group of favourites, EF Education-EasyPost upped the pace from the start. They went ‘full gas’, causing the peloton to split. Georg Steinhauser rode so hard that only Carapaz was still on his wheel. The German kept up his effort for a few hundred metres, after which Carapaz took over. Pink jersey Del Toro had to leave a gap, but quickly pulled him back. The other favourites stayed together. Egan Bernal and Giulio Pellizzari were in trouble.
While Carapaz slowed down a bit after his first acceleration, Yates rode away from the GC group. He immediately put Carapaz and Del Toro in trouble. The Visma | Lease a Bike didn’t ease off and pushed again. He did not get away, but tried again. Carapaz responded immediately, Del Toro followed a little later. That turned out to be an incentive for Carapaz to give it another go, Del Toro reacted. Yates went with them and immediately jumped again. The three stayed together, but the race was on.
Carapaz couldn’t get rid of Del Toro
It went quiet and Derek Gee was able to come back. But Yates saw the Canadian coming and accelerated for the fourth time. This time he did create a gap. Gee joined Carapaz and Del Toro and took the lead. The Canadian set off on a chase and Carapaz saw his chance to attack. This time he seemed to give it a bit more, but was unable to drop the Mexican. The two got closer to Yates at first, but then pulled away again.
Carapaz and Del Toro got some help from the caught De Bondt. The Belgian took the Mexican and Ecuadorian in tow for a while. When he dropped out, the two top favourites for the final victory slowed. Yates was able to take advantage to move further away. His lead over the chasers increased to 40 seconds, so he virtually passed Carapaz overall. The leader of EF Education-EasyPost saw the danger and started to chase again.
Yates was on his way to pink
This wasn’t for long, because Carapaz soon stopped again. He and Del Toro lost speed and Gee was able to come back. Carapaz then used the Canadian as a target for his next attack. Again Del Toro had to leave a gap, but closed it again. When they hit the gravel section, the three pursuers, Gee had come back again, were 1 minute down. Yates extended his lead even further, and he now took over the pink jersey from Del Toro (virtually).
The UAE Emirates XRG race leader started to ride at the front. That only lasted a short while, because Gee took the lead again. It was not fast enough and Yates extended his lead to 2 minutes. Carapaz saw his chances of the final victory disappear and attacked again a few kilometres before the summit. Gee dropped back, as Del Toro could follow. The gap to Yates dropped a little, but at the top the difference was still 1:40. Yates was still leading the Giro d’Italia overall.
Wout van Aert was waiting for Simon Yates
Yates had Van Aert waiting ahead from the break, the two teammates got together on the descent of the Finestre. He then rode himself to a standstill for his leader. His lead on the first part of the climb to Sestriere grew to 3 minutes. Del Toro now had the help of his teammates, Majka and McNulty, but it was too late. The lead grew bigger because of Van Aert and then Yates rode on by himself to take the lead and barring incident, the 2025 Giro.
The stage victory went to Chris Harper, the biggest victory of his career. Yates crossed the line in third place, after Verre and Harper. The Visma | Lease a Bike rider should have no problems on the flat stage to Rome on Sunday. Del Toro won the sprint from the favourites group and will finish second overall, with Carapaz in third.
A well fought for win for Chris Harper
Stage winner, Chris Harper (Jayco AlUla): “I definitely wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go today as I was up the road yesterday and I didn’t really have the legs. I also thought maybe today would be a big battle with the GC guys and the break wouldn’t arrive anyway. I got away with a big group, and I just tried to be smart. I gave it 100 percent, and I hoped I could hold on. It means a lot (to win on the Finestre stage). It’s such a famous climb and I’m pretty proud to win the stage here. It’s a super challenging stage and I’m really happy I could pull it off. I felt quite good at the start [of the Giro d’Italia], but unfortunately on that second rest day in the afternoon I started to feel pretty bad and ended up on antibiotics. I decided to try and recover as much as possible once I was off GC, and then the focus was these last mountain stages to try and get into a break and see if I could get a result. I asked the car one last time how big the gap was, I knew Simon [Yates] was coming from behind, I wasn’t super confident. Once I got to about 1.5km to go, I knew I could hold on and it was a bit of a relief.”
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Giro d’Italia Stage 20 Result:
1. Chris Harper (Aus) Jayco AlUla
2. Alessandro Verre (Ita) Arkéa-B&B Hotels
3. Simon Yates (GB) Visma | Lease a Bike at 1:57
4. Gianmarco Garofoli (Ita) Soudal Quick-Step at 3:52
5. Remy Rochas (Fra) Groupama-FDJ at 3:57
6. Martin Marcellusi (Ita) VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè at 4:31
7. Carlos Verona Quintanilla (Spa) Lidl-Trek
8. Max Poole (GB) Team Picnic PostNL at 6:45
9. Isaac Del Toro Romero (Mex) UAE Emirates XRG at 7:10
10. Giulio Pellizzari (Ita) Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe.
Giro d’Italia Overall After Stage 20:
1. Simon Yates (GB) Visma | Lease a Bike in 79:18:42
2. Isaac Del Toro Romero (Mex) UAE Emirates XRG at 3:56
3. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost at 4:43
4. Derek Gee (Can) Israel-Premier Tech at 6:23
5. Damiano Caruso (Ita) Bahrain Victorious at 7:32
6. Giulio Pellizzari (Ita) Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe at 9:28
7. Egan Arley Bernal Gomez (Col) INEOS Grenadiers at 12:42
8. Einer Rubio Reyes (Col) Movistar at 13:05
9. Brandon McNulty (USA) UAE Emirates XRG at 13:36
10. Michael Storer (Aus) Tudor at 14:27.
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