To be precise: the Paddock experts were right in saying that Del Toro would struggle on long climbs, but they were completely wrong about the winner, everyone said Carapaz, instead it's Yates. Just so it doesn't seem like they're infallible and all-knowing. But even more to say with a cool head how unpredictable the 2025 Giro finale is, even for insiders (yes, sure, someone was saying watch out for Yates, but to cover their backs, shooting five names with the certainty of getting it right).

No nonsense: Yates surprised everyone, even himself, with a masterful Colle delle Finestre. So much courage, so much intelligence, so much strength. His masterpiece then benefited from the grandiose collaboration of the two rivals Del Toro-Carapaz, in the end neither of them in the pink jersey, but world champions of fools. Throwing away a Giro d'Italia like this, without even attempting a desperate all-or-nothing final move, goes down in cycling history as one of the most illuminating pages of ridiculousness.

In any case, what a shame. A real shame. The Giro of leveling, the Giro without phenomena, the Giro as beautiful as a Serie B match between Sassuolo and Pisa could be, this Giro was providing the most exciting final show, then those two behind Yates did everything to ruin the spot. Like it or not, Yates' epic day will inevitably remain in memories as the day of comedic moments behind him, a kind of Mai Dire Gol with a tremendously painful aftertaste. Cycling always wants commitment, battle, generosity, seeing it reduced to a petty childish squabble shamefully taints a great day. And this especially applies to the kid, to this Del Toro who at 21 had somehow managed to make Italy love him, for his age and his ways, only to then ruin the picture with the final kilometers. Him and the other with fingers in the eyes, it's your fault, no you started it, so I'll make you lose, you'll lose more anyway: those who have read The Betrothed cannot help but have revisited the eternal and unchanging scene of Renzo's roosters, who continue to peck at each other while he's taking them to the gallows from the Azzeccagarbugli.

It ended like this, between glory and misery. Full credit and great applause to the most lucid in the group, capable of winning the Giro with a single attack, without winning a stage, without ever sticking his nose out (impossible not to notice the difference with the Pogacar protocol, just a year later).

For us who have also taken the Giros of Hesjedal, someone who in his life has won more or less like the fingers of one hand, it won't sound scandalous to take this Yates too. The twin, at least, took it with an intelligent and brutal move on the most beautiful stage. And if anything, the two roosters behind him must deal with the what-ifs.

For the rest, of this very poorly designed Giro (three-quarters too easy, three big stages all concentrated at the end), I'll keep the Strade Bianche (they never disappoint), the gigantic Pedersen capable of holding up the weak part alone, the monumental Caruso as a spot of longevity and above all seriousness, the first signs of Pellizzari as a true rider. I'll gladly forget the art of prediction (the Giro at the eve: Roglic-Ayuso duel, Ciccone and Tiberi the Italian cards), the final explosion of UAE, the routes like the one in Cesano Maderno (thank the Holy Mother: if the group had arrived that day, maybe under two drops of rain, we'd be talking about crimes against humanity), and of course the tragicomic cabaret of the two roosters on the day of the epilogue.

And this is the conclusion. In greeting and thanking everyone who followed us, supported us, mocked us, anyway giving us the pleasure of having readers, I'll take my leave with a free vote in the eternal referendum that opposes the two ideas of Giro. Question: citizen, do you prefer the show race of a great champion or the daily struggle between equals, perhaps resolved in a pitiful framework of rooster fight? I vote for the first, even more convinced.

Amen.