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Tuesday June 3, 2025

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2024 Tour de France | 2024 Giro d'Italia

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Upcoming racing:

• June 8: Brussels Cycling Classic
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• May 9 - June 1: Giro d'Italia
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More Giro d'Italia stage 21 team reports

Yesterday we posted the reports from GC winner Simon Yates' Team Visma | Lease a Bike, GC second-place Isaac del Toro's UAE Team Emriates, King of the Mountains Lorenzo Fortunato's Team XDS Astana, Team INEOS Grenadiers, & Team Soudal Quick Step. You can read them here.

Here's the final Giro report from GC third-place Richard Carapaz's Team EF Education-EasyPost:

This evening, Richard Carapaz and his EF Education-EasyPost teammates rode into Rome to celebrate their tremendous Giro d’Italia.

As the sun set over The Eternal City, Richie waved to the crowds from the third step of the podium. He is proud of the way that our team rode this Giro.

Richard Carapaz wins stage 11. Photo: La Presse

Thank you, Richie. Thank you Kasper Asgreen, Mikkel Honoré, James Shaw, Owain Doull, Alexander Cepeda, Georg Steinhauser, and Darren Rafferty. You raced to win and kept our maglia rosa dream alive for the past three weeks. Richie’s stage 11 victory and Kasper’s win on stage 14 were unforgettable rewards for the courage, team spirit, and grit that you each showed from the grand partenza in Albania all the way to tonight’s final stage in Rome.

Your success in this Giro was founded on the hard work that you put into preparing for this race long months before its start. Your grinta paid off. Over the past three weeks, you showed that we are a team that can take on any team in the world and race for grand tour GCs.

Tomorrow, the sun will rise again over Rome and we will resume the work that has brought us here. Tonight, we’re going to celebrate this Giro and just how far we have come over the past month in Italy.

Read our team’s thoughts from the finish of the 2025 Giro d’Italia in Rome.

Richard Carapaz:
"We are very happy. The team should be very proud of themselves. We all showed the right attitude from day one. We knew the objective and tried every day. The plan was to win the Giro and we never gave up. I think the team gave it their all and made a spectacle for the fans. Our attacking way of riding was nice for them to see for sure.

"The circumstances of the race were what they were. We all played the same game, the game of trying to win, and only one could win. We went all in for it and it ended how it ended. For me, a third place is a reward for all the hard work we put in to be on the podium, so I think we can all be very happy."

Kasper Asgreen:
"My first Giro has been really, really nice. Coming here and taking a stage win in my very first Giro is something I will definitely remember forever. Experiencing different parts of Italy that I hadn’t seen before and seeing the Italian tifosi support their biggest race was special. It has just been super fun throughout."

Mikkel Honoré:
"I think we can be really proud of ourselves and how we rode as a team for the whole Giro, from day one till today. Obviously, somewhere inside, we are still a bit disappointed to not be able to go home with the pink jersey, but that's racing. We gave everything we could until the end and we can be proud of that."

James Shaw:
"It's been a rollercoaster of emotions. It was my first Giro this year, but I've done all the other grand tours. I've ticked them all off now, and this is certainly the best of the three from a racing point of view. Other ones have their specialist areas. Others are better in other ways, but the actual race here — this takes some beating.

"The day Richie won was a highlight, and then the day Kasper won too. But the day Richie went on that mad one and took a handful of seconds — I think at that point we realized, okay, something is going to happen here. Everything is a question mark before you start. Are we really going to be good enough? Other teams might not have that, not fear, but question. But, at that point,  we didn't have that question anymore. It was like, ok, we're all in now. We're all on the same page. We're all ready for the same thing now. I think that was a real landmark in the race for us to say, from here on, this is it."

Owain Doull:
"From the moment we got to Albania, the plan was always to do the GC as best as possible with Richie. The group is quite similar to what we had in the Vuelta last year when Richie was fourth, and I know there was a feeling there that the momentum was building and he was getting back to his best level, especially for racing for GC.

"It has just been an amazing three weeks. Obviously, the highlights were Richie’s stage win, and then Kasper’s stage win as well. To have Richie on the podium is also pretty amazing. I think before the race, we probably would've signed for that. Obviously, with how stage 20 panned out and to be so close after three weeks of hard work as a team is a little bit bittersweet, especially when I think that Richie was the strongest guy in the race. But to be part of that stage 20, something which will go down in history, is also pretty cool."

"As a group, I think we performed really, really well. Some days, guys would have good days and bad days, but if someone was on a bad day, someone would always step up and fill that hole and cover where we needed it. As a collective, it's been really good. Everyone was super unified from the start."

Alexander Cepeda:
"It was a nice Giro, working for the team. It was great to feel how everyone was going for the same objective, how united we all were, and the joy. Even though we did not get what we came for, we all enjoyed the way to Rome, and I am very proud to have been here to help my team and to be part of this."

Georg Steinhauser:
"We had a nice race with Richie. For me, it was super cool to support him and see how he behaves on and off the bike. That was super special to see and I am super proud of the way we rode in the end. We didn't get the win. That's still okay. We gave it our all. We gave it our best. And today, we can enjoy Rome.

"The moment that stands out the most was the day Richie won. That was super special, just the feeling we all had together. It was Honoré, Richie, and me. We just ruled it, and then Richie went for it, and it worked out. That was a super cool experience."

Darren Rafferty:
"It was a special journey from Albania to Rome and pretty incredible to finish up with a full team and Richie on the podium. We’re going to enjoy Rome today and then a few days off the bike. I learned how hard the third week of the Giro is. I think I learned how to suffer more than I've suffered any other race. It was a big one."

Juanma Gárate, EF Education-EasyPost sport director:
"The atmosphere in the team, the belief they had — I think this race proved to them that they can do it. They can do it. They are not less than anybody else. That is basically the message for them to take from this Giro. It is such a nice group of riders. I am pretty proud of them."

GC fourth-place Derek Gee's Team Israel-Premier Tech posted this final Giro report:

Two years ago Derek Gee rolled into Rome after a breakthrough Giro d’Italia and Grand Tour debut which saw him make a name for himself as a breakaway specialist. Having narrowly missed the win on four occasions, his performance left no doubt as to how bright his future would be but the question remained, what kind of rider would he become?

Fast forward two years and that question has been well and truly answered after Gee rolled into Rome once again, this time sitting fourth on the General Classification. Just his third Grand Tour, and his second top-ten after securing ninth at the Tour de France in 2024, Gee came in targeting a top-five at the Giro d’Italia. Instead, he went one better and proved he has what it takes to target the GC.

Derek Gee finishes stage 17. Sirotti photo

“I didn’t want to put a number on it at the start,” explained Gee on his objective for the race. “But, the number I had in my head was a top five. So I’m relieved and I’m very, very happy to have been able to achieve that.”

It was a case of playing the long game this year. Having lost time on the opening stage and suffering an ill-timed puncture on the gravel on stage 9, Gee consistently climbed the GC ranks throughout the three weeks and entered the final week of racing in fifth place.

Strong legs and an incredible ability to suffer saw Gee move up one more place in the mountain-heavy last few stages and although the podium was within reach, Gee finished the Giro knowing he gave it everything to put pressure on the final podium of Simon Yates, Isaac Del Toro, and Richard Carapaz. In his words: “I had the fourth-best legs”.

“I don’t think two years ago I ever could have imagined this. And, to be honest, it just makes me a lot hungrier for more, because I know there are still areas we can improve. We’ve only been doing this GC project for a year now so I’m really looking forward to more.”

Having sat in the race car behind Gee in his inaugural Giro d’Italia in 2023 and again this year, Sports Director Sam Bewley praised Gee’s evolution as a rider, acknowledging the work Gee and the team have put in over the last two years.

“I think in 2023, when Derek was doing all those breakaways, that was kind of the moment we started to think, “Could we turn him into a GC rider?”,”explained Bewley. “Because of the way he was climbing and obviously how strong he was. So we sort of put that to the side a little bit and made it a bit of a long-term project to see how things would go.

“Over the last 12 months or so, since the Dauphiné last year, we’ve invested more in that project, to try to develop him into a GC rider, with the Giro as his first really big objective of riding GC at a Grand Tour. And I think the result here is validation. Validation to Derek and validation to the team that he is that type of rider and he can be successful in these types of races. With the right preparation, the right hard work, and the right teammates around him, it can be effective. So it’s a very, very rewarding result, for the team and for Derek, and, like I say, validation of where we can go with him.

“The objective for the Giro was top five. It wasn’t an objective we shared liberally with the riders, we just focused on trying to finish as high up the GC as we could. But in all our planning meetings with the performance team, we identified top five as something that would be difficult to achieve, but something we thought was realistic if we did a good race and rode well and Derek had good legs.

“So to finish fourth is exactly where we believed we could end up if things went our way and the process was right. Fourth place, I would’ve signed 100% for that.”

Team Jayco-AlUla posted this final Giro report:

Team Jayco AlUla have concluded a successful and memorable edition of the Giro d’Italia, highlighted by two stunning solo victories and a host of top-10 results during a demanding three weeks of racing.

From Albania to Rome, the Australian outfit were active and in the mix throughout the 21 stages and the squad were rewarded for their attacking spirit with two special stage wins for Luke Plapp and Chris Harper.

Rollercoaster Racing
The rollercoaster ride typified the demands of a three-week Grand Tour. From early heartbreak for national time trial champion Plapp, who crashed out of contention on the stage two TT, to losing the experience of Koen Bouwman who was forced to abandon the race with illness at the end of the first week.

Harper also suffered his own dose of bad luck, after initially targeting the general classification illness struck the 30-year-old in the second week, ultimately ruling him out of the running for a top-10 place overall.

However, despite these setbacks, both Plapp and Harper showed their fighting spirit to claim maiden Grand Tour wins in unforgettable fashion. Firstly, with Plapp’s impressive 46km solo ride to glory on a relentless and undulating stage eight, before Harper capped off a Giro to remember by conquering the mythical Colle delle Finestre with a 32km attack to win stage 20.

Chris Harper wins stage 20. Sirotti photo

Debuts and Top-10s
Armed with an attack-minded and aggressive squad, Team Jayco AlUla set about a relentless hunt for stage success from the opening day. Grand Tour debutants Paul Double and Davide De Pretto were both in the mix in the early stages as they infiltrated breakaways, with the latter taking a top-10 finish on day three.

Further top-10 placings followed as Plapp and Michael Hepburn delivered strong rides against the clock on stage 10, while an aggressive Filippo Zana fought to sixth place on a brutal stage 15.

Overall, the team leaves Rome happy and satisfied after a successful three-week Grand Tour that showcased the team’s fighting spirit and attitude.

David McPartland (Sports Director):
“This Giro has been a fantastic one for the whole team with two stage wins. We come into any Grand Tour with a goal to win a stage, so to be going home with two stage wins here, it sums up our successful three-week journey at the Giro.

Also with our top 10 results, we’ve had seven top 10s from different riders, which shows the depth of the whole team in this Giro d’Italia, it’s been a really well-rounded team.

We’ve had a busy three weeks; every day we’ve had goals for the guys. A lot of Grand Tours we go into, we identify stages were chasing and also list stages that are more or less ‘days off’, but this year we’ve been very busy every day chasing results, so chapeau to the to the guys.”

Chris Harper:
“The first week was good, I was feeling quite good and then the second week was not much fun, I got a bit ill and then the third week I was getting better and better. Then yesterday was a good way to finish it off.

"For sure it’s nice to win on the on such a big hard stage and I think it finished off a good three weeks by the team. Obviously, we started off with a win with Plappy and to finish with another stage win, I think we can be very happy as a team and how the race has gone for us.”

Here's the Giro report from Matteo Moschetti's Team Q36.5:

The 21st and final stage of the Giro d’Italia ended in the beautiful city of Rome. In a bunch sprint our Italian powerhouse Matteo Moschetti got his best result of the race: third place.

The peloton with Moschetti, Mark Donovan, Xabier Mikel Azparren, Tom Pidcock, Damien Howson, Emīls Liepiņš and Grand Tour rookie Milan Vader started the final stage of 143 kilometers after blessings from the new Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican City.

The riders stopped by to visit the Pope. RCS photo

After a ceremonial procession the speed went up for a fantastic but chaotic uphill sprint against the backdrop of Rome’s most splendid monuments. Matteo Moschetti came in third after a lead-out from Azparren, Pidcock and Liepiņš.

Matteo Moschetti said: “I am happy because this sprint was the first one this Giro d’Italua where I could do what I needed to do, to fully sprint. Maybe I was a little too far back and had to make up at some points. I suffered in the mountains in the last week but so did everyone else. I managed to save some energy but not enough to win sadly because a stage win was my goal in this Giro d’Italia. Now it’s time to rest a little and then focus on new goals. The shape is still pretty good I think.”

And here's the final 2025 Giro report from Enzo Paleni's Team Groupama-FDJ:

The 2025 Giro d’Italia came to a close this Sunday in the Italian capital, and Enzo Paleni didn’t miss the opportunity to make one last breakaway. On the offensive on the final circuit, the rider from Beauvais showed great resilience despite constant pressure from the bunch. He was ultimately one of the last two men standing, before surrendering seven kilometres from the finish.

Olav Kooij won the stage, Simon Yates took the overall. The Groupama-FDJ cycling team concluded this first Grand Tour of the season without the expected results, despite a constant commitment.

Only 143 kilometres remained to be covered this Sunday to complete the 108th Giro in history. From Rome, the riders first had a small trip towards the coast before returning to the Eternal City to complete a series of laps. After an initial stop in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, the peloton experienced a very calm start to the day, before attacks erupted entering the first of eight laps, just over 80 kilometres from the finish.

Stage 21: The peloton in front of the Victor Emmanuel II Monument

After a few minutes of fighting, six men managed to escape, including Enzo Paleni. “It was the last day, so we had to empty the engine,” he smiled. “The goal was to enjoy the day up front in this magical place,” added Stéphane Goubert. “However, it wasn’t simple as the average speed was 50km/h on the local circuit. Enzo went with a nice group, both in terms of numbers and composition. The gap increased to 30 seconds, and something was possible with guys like Josef Cerny at the front.” The peloton, however, remained very careful and immediately led the chase behind the six riders.

For nearly an hour, the fugitives held a lead of about twenty seconds. “The Redbull sprint at twenty-five kilometres put the mess in the breakaway a bit, and they lost more than ten seconds at that point,” added Stéphane. “It’s a real shame because they could have fought a little longer.” “We worked well together at the start, but we had to accelerate at one point, and a few riders got stuck,” added Enzo.

With twenty kilometres to go, the lead group was reduced to five men, and shortly before the final lap, there were only two left in the lead: Josef Cerny and Enzo Paleni. The duo pushed on with the peloton just behind, started the final lap at the front, but the Frenchman reached his limits with eight kilometres to go. “We knew it would be hard to stay away because there’s a lot at stake in this stage in Rome, but we had fun,” said Enzo. “I’m finishing this Giro a bit hungry for more because I had much higher ambitions, and I wanted to give it my all today to fight for victory. It didn’t work out, but I surely gained experience for future years.”

Olav Kooij eventually won the sprint. Clément Davy secured eighteenth place on the day, and this was the end of a frustrating Giro for the Groupama-FDJ cycling team. “We came with GC hopes for David, we had a united group around a leader, and we first showed that we were motivated for that,” said Rémy Rochas. “Then, it may have been difficult to race differently, to look for personal opportunities, but we all managed to do it individually, and sometimes together. That’s a good thing to remember. There’s no victory in the end, but it will come if we continue like that.”

“The end of David’s ambitions in the general classification led us to refocus on other goals, and the whole group had to change its mindset because as it was more used to surrounding a leader,” added Stéphane. “They all managed to switch to the new approach, and they showed perfect mindset throughout the last two weeks of racing. That said, the goal has not been met in terms of results, and we must be aware of that. It’s a Giro that should bring lessons, both physical and mental, and must serve to progress for future goals.”

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