Simon Yates makes a molehill of Everest in Giro d'Italia time trial
22 May 2018 07:38
Last week, Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) described stage 16 of the Giro d'Italia as the Mount Everest standing between him and final overall victory. On Tuesday, the Briton made the 34km time trial from Trento to Rovereto seem rather more like a training ride up Cragg Vale than an assault on a forbidding summit. As if it wasn't abundantly clear already, the Giro is his to lose. Yates has already climbed with disarming facility to claim three stage victories during his tenure in pink, but this latest display, on supposedly hostile terrain, was perhaps the most remarkable of his race to date. He began the day with a lead of 2:11 over world time trial champion Tom Dumoulin and, his team maintained privately, more than a fighting chance of retaining a few seconds of that lead. In the end, Yates exceeded even their giddiest expectations by placing 20th on the stage, 1:37 behind winner Rohan Dennis and just 1:15 behind Dumoulin. In the overall standings, Yates has a buffer of 56 seconds over Dumoulin, with everybody else now more than three minutes back. It was, by some distance, the best time trial of his professional career.ADVERTISEMENT "I think definitely for the longer time trials," Yates said. "I've had some good prologues and short time trials before, which were probably a little bit better, but for the long ones, this is definitely the best." The pan flat course from Trento to Rovereto ought to have suited the power of Dumoulin, but from the first time check after 12 kilometres, it was clear that the Dutchman would not divest Yates of the maglia rosa. Yates was just 21 seconds back at that point, and he maintained a similar tempo to the second check after 25 kilometres, where the gap edged out to 48 seconds. "I'm very satisfied. The first 25 kilometres were really good, I had a really good rhythm, I felt good, but then the final 10 were horrific, I was really dying a thousand deaths. But I managed to hold it together, and I am still here in the jersey, so I'm extremely happy," Yates said. "On a course like that, it's one pace, there was no area where you needed to squeeze or hold back. It was a drag race, really." Terbutaline
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