Giro d'Italia 2025 Stage 21

June 1, 2025 It has been quite an exciting Giro and even though the GC, Sprints, and Mountains Classifications are wrapped up, there is still a stage win up for grabs before the curtain closes for another year. The final stage takes the riders through Rome and out to the seaside town of Ostia before returning into the Eternal City for eight and half laps and a likely sprint finish to cap off the 21st stage. The circuit is the same as in previous years but the finish is in front of the Circus Maximus up a reasonable incline that will suit a power sprinter with the freshest legs. The neutral roll-out took the riders through the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Leo XIV where the jersey winners got to shake hands and take photos. When they got underway, all of the classic photo ops were taken with glasses of Prosecco with the winning team of Visma-Lease a Bike. They continued to roll Southwest towards Ostia and, once on the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the first attack came. Dries De Bondt of Decathlon AG2R went to grab points in Fontana dello Zodiaco for the Intermediate Sprints competition. He was followed by Alessandro Tonelli of Polti-VisitMalta. De Bondt took enough points to win that competition and the pair dropped back to the bunch as Visma-Lease a Bike started to ride on the way back to Rome. As soon as Visma-Lease a Bike led through the finish line on the circuit with 75KM to go, the first real attacking started. Michael Hepburn of Jayco AlUla was the first to get away and was soon joined by Alessandro Verre of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Enzo Paleni of Groupama-FDJ, Josef Černý of Soudal Quickstep, Andrea Pietrobon of Polti-VisitMalta, and Martin Marcellusi of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè. Picnic-PostNL, Visma-Lease a Bike, and Alpecin-Deceuninck swapped turns on the front to keep the gap within 20 seconds. With 28.5KM and three laps to go, the break had forced open another 10 seconds between themselves and the peloton and were putting up a strong fight. Through the Redbull Golden Kilometer at 23.5KM to go, Černý attacked and the break lost their cooperation. Decathlon AG2R came to the front and had the break at 10 seconds through 2 laps to go. As the bell rang out for one lap to go, only Paleni and Černý were ahead but only by 9 seconds. Paleni was dropped and, after a valiant fight, Černý was brought back just under 6KM to go. Alpecin-Deceuninck led from 5.5KM to 2.8KM to go but looked like they were running out men. With 2.8KM to go, Tudor Pro Cycling and Decathlon AG2R came to the front. Decathlon AG2R got swept away when the group slowed a little and a big swell came from behind. Visma-Lease a Bike was the main recipient of the slow down took over through 1200M to go with Edoardo Affini. Decathlon AG2R made a run back with 600M to go to challenge Visma-Lease Bike but their train ran out of gas and Sam Bennett had to move into the bunch to get out of the wind. Wout van Aert took over from Affini with 400M to go and dropped off Olav Kooij at 150M when the road kicked up. Kooij launched but was challenged right away by Matteo Moschetti of Q36.5 and Kaden Groves of Alpecin-Deceuninck. Kooij had more left in the tank and crossed the line first to finish off a story book ending to the Giro for Visma-Lease a Bike. Final Results: Maglia Ciclamino Sprint - Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek Maglia Azzurro Mountains - Lorenzo Fortunato of XDS-Astana Maglia Bianca Young Rider - Isaac del Toro of UAE-XRG Maglia Rosa Overall GC 1. Simon Yates of Visma-Lease a Bike 2. Isaac del Toro of UAE-XRG 3. Richard Carapaz of EF-Education EasyPost 4. Derek Gee of Israel-Premier Tech 5. Damiano Caruso of Bahrain Victorious 6. Giulio Pellizzari of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe 7. Egan Bernal of Ineos 8. Einer Rubio of Movistar 9. Brandon McNulty of UAE-XRG 10. Michael Storer of Tudor Pro Cycling A last note for this Giro is that Jakob Fuglsang of Israel-Premier Tech has decided to retire. Today was his last race as a professional after 17 years that included big wins such as two overall wins at the Critérium du Dauphiné and two Monument wins, one in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and one in Il Lombardia.