Can Our Man Isaac del Toro Actually Win the Giro?
Plus, Wout van Aert is not washed after all!
I know there’s some controversy surrounding what I’m going to call “gimmick stages” in grand tours. These are stages where the course of the race visits the site of a famous one-day classic, so the organizers figure we might as well have a stage that’s Paris-Roubaix-in-miniature.
These stages can throw a grand tour into chaos. They go against the climbing-and-time-trialing core of a stage race, especially a grand tour. If the best rider hits a cobble and breaks his wrist, then the best rider won’t win.
My view on such stages is that sports are entertainment, and if the best rider wins all the time that’s boring. There was a time in the 2010s where the Tour de France kept doing cobbled stages in a vain attempt to knock Chris Froome off his bike and DNF. It only worked once, but they kept trying.
I obviously don’t think the race organizers should be targeting a specific rider for defeat, much less try to get anyone injured. But if the best rider wins all the time, it’s boring. There’s a balance to be struck, for sure, but one stage to break up the monotony, especially if it involves visiting a significant stretch of road? Of course.
All the more so because the racing is usually pretty good. We end up seeing hybrid classics/grand tour tactics, with big swings in the GC battle early in the race. The team leaders, who’d otherwise ride serene, highly choreographed and well-protected programs, are left to scratch and claw with the unwashed masses.
I know I’ve mentioned Stage 5 of the 2022 Tour de France on here before, but that’s what I mean. GC riders who can do more than maximize power-to-weight ratio ought to be rewarded. Avoiding crashes and bikehandling are skills too, after all.
Stage 9 of the Giro d’Italia threw up a couple of those curveballs too.
One crash took out GC contenders Primož Roglič, Brandon McNulty, and Tom Pidcock. They all carried on, but all lost time, especially Roglič, who got a flat tire later in the stage. Meanwhile UAE Team Emirates did exactly what a team in its situation should do: Split strategies.
UAE entered Stage 9 with four riders—Juan Ayuso, Isaac del Toro, McNulty, and Adam Yates—within 1:05 of the pink jersey, and within 43 seconds of Roglič, the highest-placed GC threat coming into the stage. All four of those riders are legit GC all-rounders; Ayuso is probably the only one who could win the Giro against Roglič in a fair fight, but the reason you bring that many GC guys to a grand tour is so you don’t have to fight fair.
With McNulty shaking gravel out of his unmentionables, del Toro was the best-suited for an attack on the gravel. And while any UAE rider could theoretically contend for the race lead, Ayuso, as the class of the bunch, wouldn’t be put on a long-shot strategy anyway.
So with about 50 kilometers left, off del Toro went. He soon collected strong allies: Wout van Aert and the Ineos Grenadiers duo of Egan Bernal and Brandon Rivera. You’d think the ephemeral Bernal, all 130ish pounds of him, would get chucked off the road on a stage like this. But remember in 2021 he podiumed Strade Bianche proper; then on Stage 9 of that year’s Giro he romped to victory on a high-altitude gravel finish. His stage win put him in pink, and he never gave the jersey up.
With van Aert’s big engine and Rivera available to caddy for Bernal, the quartet stretched out their lead to more than a minute over the other contenders. Del Toro couldn’t win the stage, but he held van Aert’s wheel all the way to the final turn in Siena, and put 58 seconds on the road, plus 12 more in bonuses, into Richard Carapaz, the next GC rider to finish. Roglič lost more than two minutes.
It was enough for pink. Which he held during a rainy time trial two days later. Unfortunately, I had to work on Tuesday; otherwise I would’ve played the Giro d’Italia Time Trial Drinking Game. It has two rules: First, drink every time the TNT commentators say: “Race of Truth.” Second, finish your drink when the weather changes halfway through the stage and they start to hedge. Ah well, this might not be such a truthful race after all.
The big guns stayed together in the mountains in Stage 11, finishing 10 seconds behind stage winner Carapaz at Castelnovo ne’ Monti. Del Toro once again won the sprint for second, gaining six more bonus seconds.
Stage 12 was detente for the GC race, but after his stage win on Sunday, van Aert continued to rebuke me for insinuating that he was washed.
This wasn’t an individual effort for his own sake, but rather a truly incredible leadout. Van Aert took the baton from Edoardo Affini with a kilometer left as the last leadout man for Visma-Lease a Bike sprinter Olav Kooij. On a big, flat, open road like the Champs-Élysées, a team might devote two or even three leadout riders to the 800 or so meters between the flamme rouge and the sprinter’s dropoff point.
Van Aert did the whole thing himself, stretched out and snapped the peloton, isolated the other sprinters, navigated Kooij around the final corner in inch-perfect position, then kept pedaling until the final 200- or 250-meter mark. TNT announcer Rob Hatch called Kooij’s task “a penalty kick,” so decisive was van Aert’s effort. (Kooij almost botched it, but that’s neither here nor there.)
As happy as I am to see signs of life from van Aert—and not just life, but genuine swagger and arrogance—only one question remains: How long can del Toro hang on to the maglia rosa?
Here are the GC standings after Stage 12:
Isaac del Toro, UAE Team Emirates, Mexico, 42 hours, 42 minutes, 39 seconds
Juan Ayuso, UAE Team Emirates, Spain, +33 seconds
Antonio Tiberi, Bahrain-Victorious, Italy, +1 minute, 9 seconds
Simon Yates, Visma-Lease a Bike, United Kingdom, +1 minute, 11 seconds
Primož Roglič, Red Bull-Bora -Hansgrohe, Slovenia, +1 minute, 26 seconds
Richard Carapaz, EF Education-EasyPost, Ecuador, +1 minute, 58 seconds
Giulio Ciccone, Lidl-Trek, Italy, +2 minutes, 11 seconds
Brandon McNulty, UAE Team Emirates, United States, +2 minutes, 18 seconds
Adam Yates, UAE Team Emirates, United Kingdom, +2 minutes, 35 seconds
Thymen Arensman, Ineos Grenadiers, Netherlands, same time
Egan Bernal, Ineos Grenadiers, +2 minutes, 41 seconds
Between Pidcock, Derek Gee, Damiano Caruso and Michael Storer, there are plenty of riders in the top 20 who I think could still get into the top 10. At the end of the race, there’s usually a big gap somewhere in the GC standings, probably in the low teens, where you can tell the GC battle stopped. Everyone above that mark cared about their overall placing; everyone below had given up and worked for a teammate or chased stages.
Right now, that cut is forming in the low 20s. Max Poole in 21st leads 22nd-place Nicolas Prodhomme by nearly two minutes; 23rd-place James Knox leads 24th-place Nairo Quintana by a similar amount, and Nairoman is a rounding error off of 10 minutes back of del Toro right now.
As far as I know, the party line at UAE is that the riders sitting 1-2 will settle this on the road. They’re not going to ask del Toro to work for Ayuso while he’s wearing pink, at least not as things stand.
If del Toro is going to hang on, he’s got to stay there as long as possible.
This feels like a bit of a weird situation because it doesn’t happen at the Tour de France that often, but it’s not that uncommon for a second-tier contender to get into a big break early in a grand tour, take the lead of the GC, and hang on for a while. It’s happened at the past two Vueltas, after all.
In fact, what’s happening to del Toro now is exactly what happened the last time a North American rider came this close to winning a grand tour: Sepp Kuss at the 2023 Vuelta. Kuss entered the race as a domestique and nominal GC decoy for a team with two much, much more credible threats. He got into a big break early in the race, either to get the other teams to chase or to serve as a satellite rider once the peloton caught up. Neither happened, and Kuss found himself in red. He held onto the jersey, somewhat improbably, in the individual time trial, then remained in it late enough in the race that it would’ve been seen as unsporting for his teammates to take it off him.
It’s fascinating how the individual-team dynamic plays out in cycling, alongside century-long norms and customs. If UAE were being completely rational, they’d probably have del Toro get on the front and pull for Ayuso on the next big mountain stage. Just as Jumbo-Visma would’ve put Kuss on the front to ride for Jonas Vingegaard at the Vuelta.
But you can’t be completely cold and rational in this sport, or else people will think you’re an asshole.1 There are benefits to people not thinking you’re an asshole, of course; del Toro is 21 years old, and if you don’t think he’s got grand tour winner potential now, I don’t know what to tell you.
He’s also under contract with UAE until 2029, and if they force him to swap with Ayuso now, that’s a long time to have del Toro outside the tent, pissing in.
Good business practice: Don’t make your employees resent you for no reason.
Especially because I do think there’s going to be a moment before the end of the race where del Toro has to hand the baton to Ayuso. Let it happen naturally and everyone goes home happy.
I suspect that’s what Jumbo-Visma thought was going to happen to Kuss, but it didn’t. At the same time, Jumbo-Visma had an advantage then that UAE doesn’t now: after Remco Evenepoel went in the crapper halfway through the race, they had the podium locked out. Roglič finished third, 1:08 behind Kuss, but more than two minutes ahead of Ayuso in fourth.
McNulty looked beat up after his crash on Sunday and was just awful, by his standards, in the ensuing time trial. Even if Ayuso and del Toro finish 1-2, I don’t think a podium lockout is in the cards here.
Del Toro not only has to watch his teammate, he’s got Roglič, Carapaz, and Tiberi all within a margin that can be gained or lost on one climb. Ineos having two riders within three minutes of the lead gives them options as well, especially with Bernal riding well. The moment when del Toro naturally cedes leadership to Ayuso might come after, or simultaneously with, the moment Roglič or Carapaz forces UAE to make a choice to avoid losing the pink jersey altogether.
Barring a crash, I do not think that moment is going to come before Sunday. That’s the next true mountain stage, featuring a mid-stage ascent of the 25.1 kilometer Monte Grappa,2 followed by a 16.6 kilometer, 5.3% second-category climb to Asiago.3
If del Toro can hang on, he’ll enter the last week of the Giro in the lead. At that point, anything’s possible.
Unfortunately, he’ll come out of the rest day and head straight into the toughest part of a weirdly backloaded grand tour. Three category 1 climbs and a category 2 on Tuesday, ending in a summit finish. Then we get into the mountains with names you know: The Mortirolo mid-stage on Wednesday, then the highest-altitude point of the race in the penultimate stage: the Colle delle Finestre, accompanied, as always, by a final climb into Sestriere.
I think del Toro will still be in pink when he hits the final rest day. If he stays there any longer than that, he’ll have fucking earned it.
Which is certainly what I think of Vingegaard after he attacked Kuss on the Angliru, it’s OK, I’m not still bitter
Speaking of ways to get really drunk before noon
Mmmm, cheese
Sorry to contradict you, but I think you misunderstand the cultural importance of these cobbled stages in the history of French cycling. They've been present since the 70s, although it's true that they've been more regular since the early 2000s (which generally coincides with the Tour's passage through northern France, which isn't systematic 04, 10,14,18,21).
The idea that these stages were designed to harm a rider makes no sense and more akin to a conspiracy theory than to reality.
As for Chris Froome, unfortunately for him, there was no need for cobbled stages for him to end up on the ground, as he was so clumsy on the bike. Moreover, on the cobbled stage on which he abandoned, it's important to remember that he didn't make it to the cobbled sectors, as he fell twice before getting there.
Staying on the bike is a cyclist's most important skill. Unfortunately, it's often the same riders who fall off, and this is perhaps one of the problems of modern cycling, where athletic qualities take precedence over technical ones.
Del Toro behaved badly today on Finestre , he wanted to sit behind Carapaz all the way up the 2000 metre climb but quite rightly Carapaz got fed up of Del Toro not doing a share on the front and decided to just sit up and slow down , they both then lost time to Yates who raced on ahead to meet Van Aert his team mate who then sped them both to the finish and a big enough gap over both Del Toro and Carapaz to give Yates the leader jersey.Del Toro thre away his lead and a Giro first place preferring to argue with Carapaz.Many will call him a spoiled brat for such childish behaviour.