The report on a momentous stage 20.

That’s it for our Giro coverage for the day. We will have updates from tomorrow’s final stage as Simon Yates is crowned in Rome. What a day of cycling and thank you for following it with me. A full report will be published shortly.

Yates speaks!

The Giro winner basically sobbing into the microphone:

Once the route was released I always had it in the back of my mind that maybe I could come here and close the chapter. Maybe not to take the pink jersey and the race but at least win the stage win or something. To try and show myself, the way I know I can do. To pull off I really didn’t believe it. I have to thank the guys, the team. They believed in me and even during stage they were saying ‘just give it a try’ and I did it in the end.

We’ve always had guys up the road, almost every day in case of a situation like that happened and today was another one of those days and a very crucial moment actually.

tbh, 200m to go [was when I believed I could win the Giro]. I was on the radio blabbing asking for the time gap because I never truly believed until the very last moment really. I’m a bit speechless, really.

It’s still sinking in. I’m not really an emotion person really but even coming over the finish line I couldn’t hold back the tears.

It’s something I’ve worked towards throughout my career, year after year and I’ve had a lot of setbacks. I’ve finally managed to pull it off.

Sam Rigby has been watching at home and emails in:

Del Toro couldn’t muster the final hill. Visma Lease a Bike took a chance with their planning, gambled and it paid off to make history for Yates. UAE will have to question themselves for the season ahead for when Tadej Pogačar comes to ride the Tour.

We will be hearing from Yates shortly but I am fascinated as to how UAE are going to explain those tactics. Visma-Lease a Bike played that to perfection.

+7min 10secs. Del Toro sprints over the line but is more than five minutes behind Yates.

+5mins 17secs (to Harper). Del Toro’s group are still playing games. Caruso and Gee are back with them.

0.5km to go. Harper is approaching the finish line. Incredible performance from him. The Australian has been out on his own for a long time, great ride from him.

1.5km to go. Damiano Caruso and Gee are now pulling away from Del Toro’s group. UAE are despondent and the sharks smell blood.

2.4km to go. Yates is now only 40 seconds behind Verre, who is second on the road. Harper is way out in front.

3.6km to go. Yates is now closer to Harper at the front that the maglia rosa group.

4.5km to go. The UAE riders are all around Del Toro now but they are livid, shouting into the radio. Robbie McEwan makes the point on TNT that Del Toro never looked uncomfortable with increasing the pace. I don’t think he would have had an issue following Yates’ pace but he never wanted to work with Carapaz to chase him down.

5km to go. Van Aert is done, he basically slows to a stop. What an incredible turn from the Belgian, he has broken the chasers. Yates can ride away to the pink jersey now.

6.5km to go. Del Toro is now back with his riders and must be livid at the strategy from his team car. They failed to react and with Van Aert up the road this kind of explosion was always on the cards.

7.8km to go. Van Aert’s face is pure grimace, he must be in so much pain. Yates has this. What a ride, this is on a par with what Froome did to Yates in 2018 on this very stage.

8.8km to go. Van Aert has exploded this gap to more than 3mins 30secs for Yates.

10.4km to go. Yates, with the assitance of Van Aert, has more than 2mins 30secs lead on the road. Del Toro is basically begging with Carapaz to ride but he won’t. This is looking like it is over for the Mexican.

15km to go. Harper is on the climb to Sestriere, he leads by 1min 40secs and surely has the stage in the bag.

17.7km to go. Del Toro and Carapaz aren’t making the most of this chase. In fact, the gap to Yates is now two minutes.

19.7km to go. Van Aert comes into view for Yates and now he’ll help tug his leader into the pink jersey. Visma-Lease a Bike have played this to perfection so far.

21.7km to go. Del Toro and Carapaz are on the downhill. Yates is whipping down the hill but still no sign of Van Aert.

22.8km to go. Carapaz looks to be trying to work Del Toro but the EF Education-EasyPost rider miscues a corner.

24.6km to go. The distance to go will come down rapidly now as Harper descends, but it’s Yates’ race position is the one to track. He still has a virtual GC lead of around 20 seconds and is nearly at the top of Finestre.

26.6km to go. Harper is over the top and well clear. When will Van Aert come into play here? Yates must be close.

27.6km to go. Harper is approaching the top of Finestre and the crowds are huge. Simon Yates is having his lead shaved slightly, but not dramatically.

28.6km to go. Gee is dropped again by another Carapaz acceleration. Apparently Adam Yates is trying to bridge over to Carapaz and Del Toro to assist the race leader in pursuit of twin brother Simon. That could be a very awkward conversation later.

28.7km to go. Harper is well clear at the front of the race. He’s on 9.2% gradient gravel, brutal stuff.

29km to go. Yates now leads Del Toro by 35secs on the road.

30km to go. Yates keeps extending his lead, it’s now around 1min 40secs over Del Toro. Van Aert is a couple of minutes ahead of Yates. This is incredible drama.

30.8km to go. For the first time Del Toro looks like he might be struggling with the pace of the riders around him. Gee gets back in contact.

31km to go. Yates trailed by 1min 21secs and now has a 13secs lead on the road.

32km to go. Del Toro, Carapaz and Gee are on the gravel, but Yates has moved into the GC lead on the road.

32.4km to go. Harper has left Verre behind, that could be the stage winning move.

32.5km to go. No sign of Van Aert yet, but he should still be a factor for Yates.

33.2km to go. Yates has nearly a minute on Del Toro now. Until now I thought Del Toro had this under control but I’m surprised he has let this gap to Yates get so big.

33.7km to go. Yates is on the gravel. This will be interesting to see if he can handle it.

34km to go. Carapaz wants Del Toro to work as Yates pulls away. Gee blows past them and then Carapaz goes again. Del Toro is still glued to Carapaz’s wheel. It’s so cat and mouse.

34.7km to go. Yates has stretched his lead to nearly 40 seconds over Del Toro and Carapaz.

35km to go. Alessandro Verre and Chris Harper are on the gravel section. Those two are clear at the front and have nearly a minute lead, so the stage winner could well come from that pair.

35.6km to go. Yates is back at 20 seconds advantage. He started the day 1min 21 secs down on Del Toro, so there is still a lot of work to do.

36km to go. The leaders are nearly on the gravel section.

36.8km to go. They didn’t manage to bridge over and Yates probably still has 10 seconds.

37.2km to go. That attack has brought Del Toro and Carapaz back to within touching distance of Yates.

37.6km to go. Carapaz attacks and is putting some distance between himself and Del Toro. Gee can’t handle the pace.

38.2km to go. Derek Gee has joined the GC group, so there are three riders now chasing Yates. The Briton has 20 seconds and Van Aert up the road to help. Can he do this? What a story.

38.5km to go. Yates has gone away again and now has some serious distance. Maybe 20 seconds.

39km to go. Yates and Carapaz are taking in turns to attack but so far Del Toro has had the answers every time.

39.8km to go. Yates attacks and puts a few metres between himself and the other two before he is yanked back by Carapaz. This will have to be death by 1,000 cuts for Del Toro to falter.

40km to go. Yates has made it across. Incredible stuff, I thought he was gone when Carapaz went off the front.

40.6km to go. Simon Yates has gone off to try and chase down Carapaz and Del Toro. The Briton has to make up about 20 seconds.

41km to go. Del Toro looks like he has this under control. Hands off the handlebars, settled in the saddle. Carapaz has a job on his hands if he wants to break the race leader.

41.6km to go. Here goes Carapaz and he is now one-on-one with Del Toro. This is the race. It’s a long way to go for the EF Education-EasyPost rider. Simon Yates is out of it.

41.9km to go. The peloton has been blown to pieces by EF Education-EasyPost.

42km to go. The peloton hit the Finestre and EF Education-EasyPost are setting a fierce pace. The leaders in the breakaway are 10 minutes ahead of the peloton.

43km to go. Remy Rochas of Groupama-FDJ has gone off the front of the breakaway, but he is being reeled in the remaining seven members of the breakaway group. It is way too early to making that kind of move.

44km to go. The breakaway are on the Finestre and it is already claiming victims. That lead group is down from 31 to 24 riders and Van Aert is struggling.

48km to go. The GC teams in the peloton are getting lined up for the Finestre. It seems as if it will all come down to this climb. Will the drama come early? Hopefully it explodes from the start. I reckon we’ve got about an hour of serious racing to decide the pink jersey.

More on gravel from Peter Craig:

Are there in fact more crashes and punctures, etc., on gravel sections than on tarmac, kilometre for kilometre? The really bad crashes tend to be in sprints or high speed descents, so maybe gravel doesn’t add too much to the overall risk to the riders, and uphill sections hardly any.

Well I think the science would say that more punctures happen on gravel than tarmac, but I’m guessing.

65km to go. With EF Education-EasyPost no longer on the front of the peloton the pace has slowed considerably and the gap to the break is now back over nine minutes. Should it stay there to the foot of the Finestre then the stage winner could well come from there.

67km to go. Van Aert pushed on to take the intermediate sprint. Full results on that when I get them.

69km to go. We’re fast coming up to the last intermediate sprint. De Bondt claimed the first intermediate sprin and that minor classification.

Another reminder that we have an opportunity for Guardian readers to pose some questions to former Ineos Grenadiers road captain Luke Rowe. All the details below:

80km to go. EF Education-EasyPost narrowly avoid disaster on the downhill as they come in way too hot on a bend and are saved by a run-off and some bins. A group of riders in white and pink looked to be careering towards the barriers on this steep descent but managed to stay upright.

89km to go. A wonderful little Italian dispute at the top of the Colle de Lys as Manuele Tarozzi and Jacopo Mosca got in a spat over the KOM points and the cash prize. Mosca has been doing a lot of the uphill work and reacted when Tarozzi tried to move away for the points. Unclear who won that little sprint but there was some entertaining regional hand gestures.

90km to go. The break are approaching the summit of this category two climb now and the gap is now around eight minutes, down around 30 seconds over the last 20km or so.

93km to go. The downhill from the top of the Colle de Lys is lengthy, some 13km, and teams with riders in the GC will want to be near the front to avoid any danger.

95km to go. Credit to Mads Pedersen, he’s in the maglia ciclamino but has dropped off the back of the breakaway to help pace his teammate Carlos Verona back up to the group.

101km to go. EF Education-EasyPost are pulling so hard on the front that they actually seperated off the front of the peloton without Carapaz. In words more commonly found on the astros of Powerleague: ‘Talk, lads’.

108km to go. The peloton is steaming upward toward the Colle de Lys, hovering around the 47km per hour pace, and have eaten a little into the time gap to the breakaway. This is mostly the work of EF Education-EasyPost who are dragging everyone else up. Just a reminder, they’re going on uphill on a bike. Superhumans.

115km to go. EF Education-EasyPost’s riders are coalescing around the front of the peloton to look after Carapaz and UAE Team Emirates-XRG have responded by doing the same for Del Toro.

We’ve had an email from Gary Price-Hunt:

Personally I don’t like sections like this thrown into the middle of a road race and right at the pointy end of a three week race, it’s suddenly lottery time. You wouldn’t stop an FA cup final and ask them all to carry on playing on the local allotment would you?

It is definitely a bit gimmick-y, but on a day like today where you need something to happen that gravel section could provide the drama we need.

125km to go. Eveything is uphill now to the Colle del Lys. Currently the gradient is not too steep, but as we get closer to the category two climb it will get harder. It’s probably not going to trouble too many of the riders in the break, but will we see some early attempts to unsettle Del Toro? The TNT commentary team are sceptical but personally I think that Team Visma-Lease a Bike and EF Education-EasyPost will want to make the Mexican work for this.

When it comes to professional bike racing Luke Rowe has been there, seen it, done it as a key man in the team that evolved through Sky Procyling, Team Sky, Team Ineos and eventually Ineos Grenadiers. Rowe’s memoir, Road Captain, will be published on 5 June. Is there anything you want to ask him about the cut and thrust of life in the pro peloton – or anything else? Then you can do so using the link below, which has all the details.

137km to go. The pace has slowed as these riders go up the little bump of the Corio but after this there is little respite for the riders as it’s pretty much all uphill from there to the Colle del Lys.

139km to go. Dries De Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) eases away from the bunch to take this intermediate sprint. That looked like he had the blessing from Pedersen to go and take those points. De Bondt is a long way behind Pedersen in the points standings, with one more intermediate sprint to go.

140km to go. The break has 7mins 40secs on the peloton as we come up to the intermediate sprint.

Just a reminder, here is the current standings in the GC:

1. Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)
2. Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +43secs
3. Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) +1min 21secs
4. Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) +2mins 32secs
5. Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) +3mins 36secs
6. Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) +5min 13secs
7. Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) +5mins 46secs
8. Einer Rubio (Movistar) +6mins 39secs
9. Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) +9mins 11secs
10. Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +9mins 33secs

Please do send in your thoughts on today’s stage. My email is in bullet points at the top of the page.

150km to go. Mads Pedersen, the current wearer of the ‘maglia ciclamino’, will likely seal the points jersey in the upcoming intermediate sprint. The Lidl-Trek rider is in this large breakaway and has teammates who will be watching wheels.

156km to go. The big group has now come together so we have 31 riders in a large breakaway, which will whittle down on the climbs but sounds impressive for now. We’re about 15km away from the first serious uphill. Van Aert is in there and will be making everyone else nervous.

164km to go: This breakaway business isn’t done yet. We now have a much larger group of 19 riders who have set off the front of the peloton and are making decent time on baker’s dozen ahead of them. How happy those ahead will be to see Wout van Aert being brought up towards them remains to be seen, but Belgian has got himself in there.

For anyone in need of a catchup on the race situation, here is the report from stage 19: