The penultimate day of this Giro d’Italia was set up to be a battle between the maglia rosa, Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), only for a textbook Visma-Lease a Bike move that catapulted Simon Yates into the pink jersey, redeeming himself seven years after he himself lost La Corsa Rosa on the Colle delle Finestre. It was a dramatic finale to this intriguing race and only added to the legend of the final climb.
Yates had around 1:40 of a gap on the Finestre’s summit, which put him the virtual pink jersey by around 0:20 and then he linked up with domestique deluxe Wout van Aert, who had survived the Finestre in the break as a satellite rider. The gap kept growing and growing while the Giro title slipped from the 21-year-old Del Toro’s grip. In the end, it was Del Toro and Carapaz’s lack of cooperation which also saw both their pink dreams disappear up the road. For the uproar about whether or not he should have paced with Carapaz in the valley between the Finestre and Sestiere (he should have), UAE lost this Giro long before Yates slipped away on the gravel climb. Tactical errors were strewn throughout this Giro by the reigning champions, seemingly obsessed with getting as many riders high up on GC only to lose the most important position of all — the top step.
All Giro, UAE played a strange strategy, for long periods not nailing down who their leader was. Besides Rafał Majka and his sterling work on stage 19, the team didn't deploy their mountain domestiques to best use and when they did, it was sporadic and inconsistent. They did not insist that Adam Yates and Brandon McNulty go all-in in the service of Del Toro and it shows on the GC leaderboard, second place for the Mexican in a Grand Tour he was capable of winning and three other riders in the top 13 – positions that are virtually meaningless for a team of this depth and quality.
Today, Del Toro was isolated in the last 30km when he didn’t need to be. As strong as Van Aert was to get over the climb, there is no way that Brandon McNulty wouldn’t have been capable of doing the same thing, surviving the Finestre and pacing Del Toro in the valley. Obviously, the other teams wouldn’t have let in the day’s break because he was too close on GC. It’s easy to say in hindsight, but as soon as Del Toro took the jersey, they should have ordered Adam Yates, Brandon McNulty, and Rafał Majka to lose as much time as possible because none of them ever looked like challenging for the overall title. Staying high up on the overall leaderboard late into mountain stages not only tired them out but also kept them too close on the overall. If they had lost time, they would have been fresher, and far enough behind on GC to be allowed in breakaways and allowed to be satellite riders.
Packing 10-20th on GC is an act of self destruction but they should have also stopped other teams getting satellite riders in the break. We have been here before with Visma and their satellite riders blowing up a Grand Tour. In 2022, a pivotal part of how they won the Tour de France was by sending strong domestiques, like Van Aert up the road. It’s a position that UAE were not able or willing to do. Riding with multiple GC threats only works if, either your leader is Tadej Pogačar, who can look after himself, or if to use the multiple GC threats to put other teams under pressure. At this Giro, UAE didn't ever try to use this tactic and ultimately the victim of the mistake is Del Toro himself.
After the stage an emotional Del Toro said: “I have no regrets.” and he praised his team for all the work they did for him throughout the last three weeks. It’s brutal for Del Toro, who could have won this Giro. Even today, make no mistake, he was good, very good. It was not a capitulation like that of Simon Yates in 2018. Summiting the Finestre only 1:40 down on Yates is hardly a crack, especially when Del Toro had to survive multiple attacks from Carapaz.
He looked fresh at the end, coming in several minutes behind the charging Yates, a chunk of that time lost because of a lack of cooperation with Carapaz. With Van Aert pacing, the odds were always against the Mexican, but to not even try to limit the gap was a strange decision, one that appeared to come from the team car – another tactical mistake. It’s a strange and sad way for one of this year’s Giro’s great animators, Isaac del Toro, to lose.
