Wout van Aert claims 'greatest exploit' as Giro d'Italia's minor prizes are awarded in Rome

While the main focus of the Giro d'Italia's final weekend was on the battle for the maglia rosa and the overall victory in Rome, the minor classifications of the season's opening Grand Tour were also handed out in Rome.

Simon Yates (Visma-Lease A Bike) pulled off a stunning turnaround to take the race lead on the penultimate stage and thus take it home with him on Sunday.

In contrast to Isaac del Toro's (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) slender hold on pink and his eventual loss of the race lead, the battles for the maglia Azzurra and maglia ciclamino were non-existent during the three weeks.

Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana) and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) took control of the climbing and points classification before the race had left Albania and easily held them all the way to the finish.

Elsewhere, Del Toro and his UAE squad came away with the white jersey of best young rider and the team classification. But that's not all… Part of the Giro's charm is its long list of minor classifications, competitions which roll on quietly in the shadow of the main, jersey-giving classifications.

Many of these prizes – such as the maglia nera, a best descender competition, and various alternate team classifications – have fallen by the wayside over the years.

Several remain, however, with one of this year's minor prizes being taken home by Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease A Bike). The Belgian fought back from illness to play a pivotal role in aiding Yates to overall victory on stage 20 through the Alps, assist Olav Kooij to two stage wins and take one for himself.

As a result, he was handed the Trofeo Bonacossa, a prize voted upon by a panel of journalists which awards the 'greatest exploit' of the race.

His fellow Belgian Dries De Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) also came away with a competition victory. You may have noticed him doing battle with Mads Pedersen at numerous intermediate sprints during the Giro, but it wasn't in some misguided attempt to close the Dane's unassailable advantage.

Instead, De Bondt was targeting the points on offer towards the intermediate sprint prize. He took over the lead of the classification from Alessandro Tonelli on stage 17 and eventually beat the Italian by 115 points to 88 in Rome.

Polti-VisitMalta may not have come away with their man Tonelli delivering a classification victory, but fellow Italian wildcard squad VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè did.

Their rider, Manuele Tarozzi, walks away from the Giro with two prizes in the bag, the new-for-2025 Red Bull Kilometre prize and the long-running Fuga prize.

For the former, Tarozzi picked up 45 points at Red Bull Kilometre sprints to beat Del Toro, on 33, into second place. For the latter, Tarozzi simply spent the most time on the road in a breakaway of fewer than 10 riders. His 418km beat out Tonelli's 368km for the win.

Finally, we come to the 'fighting spirit' combativity prize, won by Lorenzo Fortunato. The Italian climber was on the attack day after day during the Giro, racking up mountain points and also taking home three of the daily combativity awards. It's no surprise, then, that he won the overall prize, too.