Yates shows flying form ahead of Giro tilt

British rider wins the Tour of Alps in convincing style, reports Vern Pitt

- Vern Pitt

Simon Yates will go to the Giro d’Italia next month with his confidence sky-high after a dominant performance at the Tour of the Alps last week against many of the riders he will face in Italy.

The BikeExchange rider attacked multiple times on the race’s second stage before soloing 25km to the line to take a commanding lead that he held all the way to the finish last Friday.

Sports director Matt White told Cycling Weekly: “Coming here, and getting a result this close [to the Giro], you know everything’s on track, and we’re building in the right direction. I think if we had come here and walked away with sixth place, or didn’t win a stage, it probably wouldn’t have been so good for our confidence.

“We’ve had some different preparations in the past; last year was a very different preparation with Covid and having the race in October. But we are confident with the direction that he’s [Yates] been going, it’s just nice to know that everything’s ticking along.”

He added: “A lot of the work has already been done.”

Training tweaks

White said that the winter training period had been one of the least disrupted Yates has had for some time. “What has been really good, is the whole period of his preparation has gone well. We’re talking about preparation that started in December. You’ve got to duck and weave a few things over the winter: besides Covid there’s injuries, there’s crashes, there’s flu, you name it. And I think we’ve had a really clean run up to this point of the preparation, with really good camps along the way as well,” said the Australian.