When Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) stepped up onto the podium of the Vuelta a Espaņa on Sunday for one last time, he was completing an unprecedented Grand Tour `set` of success for Great Britain. Prior to Chris Froome in the Giro d`Italia, Geraint Thomas in the Tour de France and Yates in the Vuelta a Espaņa, no nation had ever taken all three Grand Tours in the same year with different riders. What makes those results even more remarkable is that before 2018, Britain had never won the Giro d`Italia, and before 2017, the country had never won the Vuelta a Espaņa - and that for Yates and Thomas, these are first-time Grand Tour successes.ADVERTISEMENT There has been a run of more than five Grand Tour wins in the past by the same nation and it has been equalled, too, but it is not easy to compare. The French won six straight Tour de France from 1903-08 on the trot, which is six Grand Tours, but that was before the Giro and Vuelta were held. Then in 1924-26 before the Vuelta started in the mid-1930s, Giuseppe Enrici, Octavio Bottechia, Alfredo Binda and Giovanni Bruneo won three Giros and two Tours for Italy. The only time in the post-War era when all three Grand Tours were up and running where a single nation won all three Grand Tours five times in succession was in 1963-64. Jacques Anquetil won the Tour and Vuelta in 1963, then the Giro and Tour in 1964, and Raymond Poulidor took the Vuelta (then held in April) in 1964 as well.
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