Simon Yates preaches patience in preparation for tilt at pink in Giro d’Italia

Simon Yates is preaching patience as he prepares to launch another tilt at pink in the Giro d’Italia.

The 29-year-old Lancastrian is once again among the favourites to win the first Grand Tour of the year ahead of Friday’s opening stage in Hungary.

This is the fifth-consecutive season the Team BikeExchange-Jayco rider has made the Giro his primary target, prioritising it over the Tour de France, and it might just be his best chance to win it.

“There are many things that keep bringing me back,” Yates said. “It’s just a race I enjoy racing. We have a lot of Italian staff on the team, our service course is (in Varese), and I really enjoy the atmosphere in the team when we all come together and try to win the Giro.

“I think it’s a race that suits me well, it’s a very difficult race with lots of climbing.”

For a few years, it has seemed like Yates’ focus on the Giro has been about trying to recapture the magic of 2018, when he won three stages in the opening two weeks and spent 13 days in the leaders’ pink jersey before breaking on the same day Chris Froome launched his race-winning stage 19 attack.

You've got to have an eye on the big picture, be patient and wait for the race to come to you- Simon Yates

Yates, who went on to win the 2018 Vuelta a Espana after that disappointment, rode to eighth in the 2019 Giro before being forced to abandon the race due to Covid-19 in 2020, but last year he recovered from a slow start to take a stage 19 victory and finish third overall.

“I think I’ve learned patience,” he said. “You need to be quite calm. The race is three weeks. You can always go back to 2018 where we really went after it in the first and second weeks and then fell apart in the third.

“But even last year I had some