Simon Yates on Giro d’Italia: ‘I can’t change my body, I’m not going to grow to 6ft now. You’ve got to work with what you’ve got’

Simon Yates is hurting. His legs ache and his lungs burn and his stomach gnaws at his body. He is wearing the maglia rosa to signify the leader of the second-biggest bike race in the world, but, pedal stroke by pedal stroke, he is being slowly disrobed by Chris Froome.

Yates is gradually climbing the Col delle Finestre but it seems like at any moment he might slide back down the valley and into the river below. He is halfway through the middle of a stage which – if you turn it on its side – looks like someone’s swung a wrecking ball clean through it, such are the sheer Alpine mountains either side of the Dora Riparia flowing out of Turin, and Froome is taking advantage. Sometimes cycling is about being cruel, about exposing your rival’s weaknesses and preying upon them, and this is Froome now: grinding to the summit and back down the other side to extirpate the struggling Yates from the race.

It is a May day in Italy which will go down in the folklore of the Giro d’Italia – the 102nd edition of which begins on Saturday – but it conjures mixed memories for Yates on his return 12 months on. After dominating the race, the then-25-year-old from Bury was on the verge of becoming the first Briton to ever win the Italian Grand Tour; instead that honour went to Froome, whose astonishing solo attack on the Finestre won him stage 19 and effectively the Giro.

The paradox for Yates is that the lowest moment of his career came only after crashing down from what was his highest point, wearing the pink jersey for two weeks and winning three stages in style. “I look back on it with fond memories,” he tells The Independent. “I had a great time there, many successes. Obviously I was really disappointed to not win the race overall, but when I look back at what we achieved I’m very proud of what we did there.”

What does he remember of that day? “I was very, very tired. I was very fatigued. I feel that every day, though – every stage in a Grand Tour is extremely brutal. We ride almost 200km every day for three weeks. Every day is extremely exhausting but you get used to that sort of feeling. At the time I was more just disappointed for the team at not being able to pull it off. For me it doesn’t matter, I’ll always have a year to try again, such as this year. For me it was just that the team had put so much into it. We felt like we were so close.”

It was a harsh lesson in how to pace yourself over three long weeks, but perhaps without the devastation of the Giro Yates would never have learnt what he needed in order to triumph at the Vuelta a Espana a few months later. “I think so,” he says. “With the Giro we went in with a gameplan to be really aggressive and to try and take as much time as possible. We stuck to that and it didn’t come off so that’s just one of those things. We changed some things for the Vuelta and I came out on top, so it shows that we can be successful that way, and we’ll try again in the Giro now.”

This time the Giro will be different, and not only because he has learnt how to pace his assault or even because this time he will ride into Bologna’s Grande Partenza with the swagger of a Grand Tour champion. This race will be different because the course is extremely distinct, with three time trials (the first and final stages bookending the race and another in the middle) favouring against-the-clock specialists like the imposing Dutchman Tom Dumoulin who won overall in 2017, and the powerful Slovenian Primoz Roglic who arrives in brilliant form having won the Tour de Romandie last week.

Yet Yates has worked tirelessly on his time-trialling during the off-season, and comes into the race having claimed the surprise win of an individual time trial during Paris-Nice earlier this season. “Training-wise I’ve spent a lot of time on time-trialling, really many many hours, a lot of effort, and what in the past I would do normally on a road bike I would now do a time trial bike. It’s many small things, like honing your position in the wind tunnel. Unfortunately, there’s no secret recipe, it’s just a very hard discipline. I think I’m better at these time trials than for many years now.”

Is it simply a case of damage limitation against Dumoulin, a time trial world champion? Can Yates challenge them? “No I don’t think so, you just do your best on these things. I’ll never produce the same amount of power to be close to him, but it’s not just him, you have Roglic and these guys too who are very good time-triallists, but that’s just one of those things. I can’t change my body, I’m not going to grow to 6ft now. You’ve got to work with what you’ve got, you know.”

It means Yates will likely be chasing from the very first stage, but he knows that on the days in between there is plenty of opportunity to earn back time – he has learned the art of patience the hard way. Perhaps it is the ultimate sign of just how much he has learnt, and just far he has come since last year’s edition, that he will only be happy with victory in Rome in three weeks’ time. “I’m going there to win. It’s not going to be easy, and I may not do it, but that’s what my goal is. I’m going there to win.”