Tenacious Gee achieves a first for a Canadian Grand Tour rider
Simon Yates finally finishes business with Giro after seven years
Ryder Hesjedal might still be the king of Canadian Grand Tour riders with a Giro d’Italia title and three other Grand Tour top-10’s. Derek Gee’s directeur sportif Steve Bauer might have one more Grand Tour top-10 than his Israel-Premier Tech charge. But at the 2025 Giro d’Italia, Gee accomplished a first: he’s the only Canadian to place in the top-10 of consecutive Grand Tours. Gee followed up his ninth in last year’s Tour de France with fourth in the 108th Giro. He tied Bauer’s second-highest achievement for a Canadian in a Grand Tour. His GT top-10 is Canada’s 10th.
Considering that Gee lost 57 seconds to all his rivals on the first stage of the Giro, the Canadian showed spectacular grit in coming fourth, a resolve underscored by his coming back to Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz over and over on Stage 20. “Tenacious Gee” rose from 20th in the GC on Stage 9 to fourth by Stage 16.
The Giro is definitely Gee’s race. On his debut in 2023 he caught the eye of the cycling world by coming runner-up four times and fourth twice while winning the combativity award.
Simon Yates’ Redemptive Arc
If there’s a road cycling feel-good story of 2025 it’s Simon Yates finally winning the Giro d’Italia. In the 2018 edition, Yates imploded on Stage 19 after leading the race for 13 days with a hat trick of stages wins, sliding down to 18th on GC and ultimately finishing 21st. The Brit said he had “unfinished business” at the Giro, but in four more attempts, even with three additional stage victories, the best he could do was third to Bernal in 2021, DNFing twice. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider was the strongest rider on Saturday’s crucial stage, attacking del Toro and Carapaz again and again until he made it stick.
Yates’ triumph means that in his first year with the Dutch Bees, he gives the team four riders winning eight Grand Tours over six seasons starting with Primož Roglič’s first Vuelta a España title in 2019. In Visma yellow Roglič took three Vueltas and a Giro, Jonas Vingegaard earned two Tour de France yellow jerseys in a row, and Sepp Kuss claimed the 2024 Vuelta. In 2024, Roglič, Vingegaard and Kuss swept the Grand Tours.
Yates’s teammate Olav Kooij completed a big day for Visma, taking the final stage into Rome.
2025 Giro d’Italia Final GC
1) Simon Yates (Great Britain/Visma-Lease a Bike) 82:31:01
2) Isaac del Toro (Mexico/UAE-Emirates) +3:56
3) Richard Carapaz (Ecuador/EF Education-Easypost) +4:43
4) Derek Gee (Canada/Israel-Premier Tech) +6:23
5) Damiano Caruso (Italy/Bahrain-Victorious) +7:32
6) Giulio Pellizzari (Italy/Red Bull) +9:28
7) Egan Bernal (Colombia/Ineos) +12:42
8) Einer Rubio (Colombia/Movistar) +13:05
9) Brandon McNulty (USA/UAE-Emirates) +13:36
10) Michael Storer (Australia/Tudor) +14:27
Young rider classification: Isaac del Toro
Points: Mads Pedersen (Denmark/Lidl-Trek)
King of the Mountains: Lorenzo Fortunato (Italy/XDS-Astana)
Team Competition: UAE-Emirates
Right now Yates, Carapaz and Rubio are scheduled to race July’s Tour de France.
Yates is the third Brit to win the Giro after Chris Froome and Tao Geoghegan Hart, all in the past eight years.
Six of the 2025 Giro top-10 are from the Western Hemisphere: del Toro, Carapaz, Gee, Bernal, Rubio and Brandon McNulty.
There hasn’t been a multiple winner of the Giro since Vincenzo Nibali in 2016 and no consecutive victor since Miguel Indurain in 1992-1993.
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