Simon Yates wins Giro d’Italia 2025: final stage goes to Kooij
It’s a historic day for Visma Lease a Bike, which concludes the Giro d’Italia 2025 in triumph with a double success: Simon Yates conquers the final Maglia Rosa and Olav Kooij wins the final sprint in the heart of Rome, in front of the Colosseum. After the partial victories in Siena with Van Aert and in Viadana with the same Kooij, the Dutch team also imposes itself in the Eternal City, closing an unforgettable edition.
Yates’ overall triumph was already mathematical after Saturday’s queen stage on the Colle delle Finestre. The Brit dominated the Giro with intelligence and regularity, leaving behind Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates), second at 3’56”, and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), third at 4’43”. A result that crowns an edition of the pink race full of excitement and twists and turns.
The final stage, on a city circuit in Rome, saw a six-man breakaway attempt the feat, with Cerny (Soudal Quick Step) last to hold on before rejoining with 5.8 km to go. From there the battle for the sprint began: Groves’ Alpecin Deceuninck tried to get ahead, but Visma Lease a Bike built a perfect train. Affini and van Aert launched an impregnable Kooij, who set Kaden Groves and Matteo Moschetti in a sprint, with Mads Pedersen just off the podium.
The passage of the riders through the Vatican before the official start was also evocative, with a special greeting from Pope Leo XIV, in a stage symbolically dedicated to Pope Francis.
The Giro d’Italia 2025 thus closes in the sign of Simon Yates and his team, the absolute protagonists of a race that, among mountains, sprints and heart, offered spectacle until the last meter.
