Giro d'Italia Giro d'Italia 2025 stage 20: Verrès – Sestrière, 205 km

[King Of The Wolds]

What the f... did I just watch?

Ikr. Still can't get my head around what Carapaz and IDT were doing.

 

[Breh]

Haven't seen the race but Landa would've won this Giro

 

[King Of The Wolds]

Haven't seen the race but Landa would've won this Giro

Landa would have won every Grand Tour he hasn't crashed out in, right?

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

I think EF and Carapaz did everything right today, can't really put the blame on them in any way. I mean, Carapaz has won this race already and finished on every GT podium. Coming 2nd or 3rd in the great schemes of things makes no difference whatsoever, so it was obvious he should go for the win only.

Letting WVA in the break. Yes, in hindsight a mistake but I think the EF team was just to bad to have meaningful control over the breakaway anyway. I think someone from Visma in the break was the lesser evil because the possible alternative would've been someone from UAE and then you're even more of a risk to nullify an attack on Finestre.

Nuking the lower slopes on Finestre was the right choice: EF has been terrible this Giro in the mountains especially compared to UAE, Carapaz was basically always isolated with maybe Steinhauser hanging on for dear life in breakaways ahead. There's no way they could've hard paced a significant part of the climb that would've dropped the UAE doms. The only thing they could do was what they successfully pulled off: Put such a hard tempo at the base of the climb that exploded the group and forced Del Toro to go with Carapaz right away. I mean Carapaz didn't even have to go out of the saddle and Del Toro actually had to close a gap, nevermind Yates and the rest of the GC guys who had a gap of basically 20s right away. And Majka, McNuggets and Co were basically send into irrelevance from that moment on.

Now as for riding with Del Toro in the wheel/letting Yates go, I think he was put in a lose lose situation either way. He tried to find the right mix in my opinion, close Yates the first few times and attack yourself. But once it became clear that Del Toro is only interested in his wheel, he had to let Yates go at some point, can't do everything yourself with potentially the UAE doms coming back eventually. And if Del Toro is happy to lose the race like that you have to let that happen. I think he even pulled too much on Finestre, especially on the later parts when it became clear that you're not closing Yates anymore on the climb itself because the gap became to big.

As for UAE: Disasterclass in all almost every aspect. Why let WVA in the break when you have the strongest team to control. Even worse: Why give the break almost 10 minutes so you guarantee he even makes it over the top??? Performance wise they have been terrible in this last week outside Del Toro and Majka. I do understand not jumping after Yates immidiately because obviously you don't want Del Toro in a situation where he constantly gets 1-2 attacked by Carapaz and Yates but you need to act way earlier in terms of damage control.
From the sounds of DTs interview, I think they completely overestimated Carapaz and just slept on Yates. Carapaz is a smart rider but he's very "human", he has basically no alien performances and kind of never just puts 2 minutes into everybody. If you're THAT worried about Del Toros abilities on a long climb put someone in the break to do damage control after Finestre. But if you believe in his overall climbing abilities you can't just solely focus on Carapaz.

Overall, very happy to see UAE lose although I have nothing against Del Toro. Sad to see Carapaz not succeeding, he has been the most agressive and entertaining rider this race but in a way I'm also happy for Yates to close the chapter after 2018. Despite him riding for Visma.

 

[Escarabajo]

because UAE plan didn't pan out (very risky plan considering this is the last GC stage). It hinged on Yates not sustaining that long of an effort (he surprised everyone) and that UAE domestiques catch back to Toro. Carapaz didn't have any domestiques left so he kept pushing the pace to isolate Toro from his domestiques and then demanded him to help, this is why Toro was angry at Carapaz.

Carapaz: help me and we can catch him.
Toro: wait for my domestiques and we can catch him.
Carapaz:No.
Toro:Fine, I'm not helping. I'll just wait for my domestiques.
Carapaz:I'll just keep riding and your domestiques wont reach you.

LOL. When they get to the hotel Del Toro has to wait for his domestiques to open the door because he can't do it alone!!!!!

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Haven't seen the race but Landa would've won this Giro

Landa would've won last year's Tour if not for Pogi, Vingo, Remco and Bota Lume.

 

[Extinction]

I think EF and Carapaz did everything right today, can't really put the blame on them in any way. I mean, Carapaz has won this race already and finished on every GT podium. Coming 2nd or 3rd in the great schemes of things makes no difference whatsoever, so it was obvious he should go for the win only.

Letting WVA in the break. Yes, in hindsight a mistake but I think the EF team was just to bad to have meaningful control over the breakaway anyway. I think someone from Visma in the break was the lesser evil because the possible alternative would've been someone from UAE and then you're even more of a risk to nullify an attack on Finestre.

Nuking the lower slopes on Finestre was the right choice: EF has been terrible this Giro in the mountains especially compared to UAE, Carapaz was basically always isolated with maybe Steinhauser hanging on for dear life in breakaways ahead. There's no way they could've hard paced a significant part of the climb that would've dropped the UAE doms. The only thing they could do was what they successfully pulled off: Put such a hard tempo at the base of the climb that exploded the group and forced Del Toro to go with Carapaz right away. I mean Carapaz didn't even have to go out of the saddle and Del Toro actually had to close a gap, nevermind Yates and the rest of the GC guys who had a gap of basically 20s right away. And Majka, McNuggets and Co were basically send into irrelevance from that moment on.

Now as for riding with Del Toro in the wheel/letting Yates go, I think he was put in a lose lose situation either way. He tried to find the right mix in my opinion, close Yates the first few times and attack yourself. But once it became clear that Del Toro is only interested in his wheel, he had to let Yates go at some point, can't do everything yourself with potentially the UAE doms coming back eventually. And if Del Toro is happy to lose the race like that you have to let that happen. I think he even pulled too much on Finestre, especially on the later parts when it became clear that you're not closing Yates anymore on the climb itself because the gap became to big.

As for UAE: Disasterclass in all almost every aspect. Why let WVA in the break when you have the strongest team to control. Even worse: Why give the break almost 10 minutes so you guarantee he even makes it over the top??? Performance wise they have been terrible in this last week outside Del Toro and Majka. I do understand not jumping after Yates immidiately because obviously you don't want Del Toro in a situation where he constantly gets 1-2 attacked by Carapaz and Yates but you need to act way earlier in terms of damage control.
From the sounds of DTs interview, I think they completely overestimated Carapaz and just slept on Yates. Carapaz is a smart rider but he's very "human", he has basically no alien performances and kind of never just puts 2 minutes into everybody. If you're THAT worried about Del Toros abilities on a long climb put someone in the break to do damage control after Finestre. But if you believe in his overall climbing abilities you can't just solely focus on Carapaz.

Overall, very happy to see UAE lose although I have nothing against Del Toro. Sad to see Carapaz not succeeding, he has been the most agressive and entertaining rider this race but in a way I'm also happy for Yates to close the chapter after 2018. Despite him riding for Visma.

Clearly Carapaz mistakenly underestimated Yates. He was only trying to drop Del Toro, but to do that attacking from the start of the climb when Del Toro (and Yates) was still fresh wasn't the smartest move. The best place to attack on Finestre is at the start of the sterrato. That's when everyone is hurting and you can make a difference.

 

[Red Rick]

He had raced aggressively until Finestre and was out of power.

He got dropped the day before on an unipuerto 7% MTF and lost 28s to Dumoulin. That stage is part of why I think unipuerto MTF yesterday would have been better than what we got.

 

[Unchained]

Ikr. Still can't get my head around what Carapaz and IDT were doing.

What you watched was totally predictable, Del Toro has been covering everything for days, and he simply ran out of gas. It was bound to happen. 3 weeks with a few hundred hard intervals took it's toll..Yates raced more economically the entire time, smarter racing won the Giro. Carapaz came up half dozen surges short over the 3 weeks.

 

[Froome]

@noob I don't know if you are trying to be as nice as @Sandisfan is, but thank you so much.

 

[EddyMazzoleni]

He had raced aggressively until Finestre and was out of power.

Actually he showed some cracks the day before to Prato Nevoso, then on Finestre it was complete collapse.

Yep, thought that maybe he should have tried a longish 2 km-3km high tempo attack, followed by an accelearation if possible. But well, Del Toro was strong, was basically equal to Carapaz today. And IMO Yates, which makes the tactic employed rather stupid

That was what I thought also. Pace the climb at a moderate tempo with your teamates, then use your best domestique to do a really hard 3 minutes turn and then keep going for another couple of minutes. That was IMO the best shot of dropping del Toro. When he was dropped on San Valentino it first had to respond to a couple of long acceleration by Yates and that gassed him.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Clearly Carapaz mistakenly underestimated Yates. He was only trying to drop Del Toro, but to do that attacking from the start of the climb when Del Toro (and Yates) was still fresh wasn't the smartest move. The best place to attack on Finestre is at the start of the sterrato. That's when everyone is hurting and you can make a difference.

If you wait until the Sterrato, UAE snailpace the first part and you only have an 25 minute effort left which Del Toro probably would prefer. But even moreso, the gap you'll get on the Visma doms at the top will probably be not that big, so even if you drop Del Toro there's a risk you're just getting mowed down on the rolling descent/lower parts of Sestriere by domestiques.
If he had the strongest team in the race, I agree. Make the climb super hard until the sterrato and then attack. But they clearly didnt.

 

[Unchained]

I think EF and Carapaz did everything right today, can't really put the blame on them in any way. I mean, Carapaz has won this race already and finished on every GT podium. Coming 2nd or 3rd in the great schemes of things makes no difference whatsoever, so it was obvious he should go for the win only.

Letting WVA in the break. Yes, in hindsight a mistake but I think the EF team was just to bad to have meaningful control over the breakaway anyway. I think someone from Visma in the break was the lesser evil because the possible alternative would've been someone from UAE and then you're even more of a risk to nullify an attack on Finestre.

Nuking the lower slopes on Finestre was the right choice: EF has been terrible this Giro in the mountains especially compared to UAE, Carapaz was basically always isolated with maybe Steinhauser hanging on for dear life in breakaways ahead. There's no way they could've hard paced a significant part of the climb that would've dropped the UAE doms. The only thing they could do was what they successfully pulled off: Put such a hard tempo at the base of the climb that exploded the group and forced Del Toro to go with Carapaz right away. I mean Carapaz didn't even have to go out of the saddle and Del Toro actually had to close a gap, nevermind Yates and the rest of the GC guys who had a gap of basically 20s right away. And Majka, McNuggets and Co were basically send into irrelevance from that moment on.

Now as for riding with Del Toro in the wheel/letting Yates go, I think he was put in a lose lose situation either way. He tried to find the right mix in my opinion, close Yates the first few times and attack yourself. But once it became clear that Del Toro is only interested in his wheel, he had to let Yates go at some point, can't do everything yourself with potentially the UAE doms coming back eventually. And if Del Toro is happy to lose the race like that you have to let that happen. I think he even pulled too much on Finestre, especially on the later parts when it became clear that you're not closing Yates anymore on the climb itself because the gap became to big.

As for UAE: Disasterclass in all almost every aspect. Why let WVA in the break when you have the strongest team to control. Even worse: Why give the break almost 10 minutes so you guarantee he even makes it over the top??? Performance wise they have been terrible in this last week outside Del Toro and Majka. I do understand not jumping after Yates immidiately because obviously you don't want Del Toro in a situation where he constantly gets 1-2 attacked by Carapaz and Yates but you need to act way earlier in terms of damage control.
From the sounds of DTs interview, I think they completely overestimated Carapaz and just slept on Yates. Carapaz is a smart rider but he's very "human", he has basically no alien performances and kind of never just puts 2 minutes into everybody. If you're THAT worried about Del Toros abilities on a long climb put someone in the break to do damage control after Finestre. But if you believe in his overall climbing abilities you can't just solely focus on Carapaz.

Overall, very happy to see UAE lose although I have nothing against Del Toro. Sad to see Carapaz not succeeding, he has been the most agressive and entertaining rider this race but in a way I'm also happy for Yates to close the chapter after 2018. Despite him riding for Visma.

UAE didn't use Majka's great form, lots of race finish video had him looking like he had plenty left. Del Toro showed multiple times that he goes flat ,Tuesday and today he looked to have traditional bonking symptoms. Overall he gained experience for leadership, but there is obviously family order at UAE, and although Del Toro impressed when he got the surprise opportunity, that level wasn't part of team pecking order and observations before the race started.. And now UAE is really in management mayhem with their picks for TDF likely mostly made, who do you pick for Vuelta leadership? Del Toro's good fortune will make GT in Spain really tough if Pogacar doesn't race.
EF has similar issues with Ben Healy and a few others all sort of equal. And it certainly is not clear for who is second team in Vingegaard doesn't produce some risen from the ashes results..

 

[The fridge in the blue trees]

That was what I thought also. Pace the climb at a moderate tempo with your teamates, then use your best domestique to do a really hard 3 minutes turn and then keep going for another couple of minutes. That was IMO the best shot of dropping del Toro.

Except that he has no teammates capable of doing that. No, what I meant is at some point it became clear that Del Toro could answer the accelerations. Ok, then try to ride him of the wheel. But Carapaz has to do that all on his own.

 

[The fridge in the blue trees]

Clearly Carapaz mistakenly underestimated Yates. He was only trying to drop Del Toro, but to do that attacking from the start of the climb when Del Toro (and Yates) was still fresh wasn't the smartest move. The best place to attack on Finestre is at the start of the sterrato. That's when everyone is hurting and you can make a difference.

That's old school. Where you didn't attack on Mortirolo, because tempo was enough. Attacks, you paid for that later. Nowadays they seem good enough to do the attacks and not pay later. I don't think Carapaz paid for the attacks. Or Del Toro for following. It was deciding not to follow or then chase Yates, decision by Del Toro, that made the diffference.

 

[Keldergoat]

I think EF and Carapaz did everything right today, can't really put the blame on them in any way. I mean, Carapaz has won this race already and finished on every GT podium. Coming 2nd or 3rd in the great schemes of things makes no difference whatsoever, so it was obvious he should go for the win only.

Letting WVA in the break. Yes, in hindsight a mistake but I think the EF team was just to bad to have meaningful control over the breakaway anyway. I think someone from Visma in the break was the lesser evil because the possible alternative would've been someone from UAE and then you're even more of a risk to nullify an attack on Finestre.

Nuking the lower slopes on Finestre was the right choice: EF has been terrible this Giro in the mountains especially compared to UAE, Carapaz was basically always isolated with maybe Steinhauser hanging on for dear life in breakaways ahead. There's no way they could've hard paced a significant part of the climb that would've dropped the UAE doms. The only thing they could do was what they successfully pulled off: Put such a hard tempo at the base of the climb that exploded the group and forced Del Toro to go with Carapaz right away. I mean Carapaz didn't even have to go out of the saddle and Del Toro actually had to close a gap, nevermind Yates and the rest of the GC guys who had a gap of basically 20s right away. And Majka, McNuggets and Co were basically send into irrelevance from that moment on.

Now as for riding with Del Toro in the wheel/letting Yates go, I think he was put in a lose lose situation either way. He tried to find the right mix in my opinion, close Yates the first few times and attack yourself. But once it became clear that Del Toro is only interested in his wheel, he had to let Yates go at some point, can't do everything yourself with potentially the UAE doms coming back eventually. And if Del Toro is happy to lose the race like that you have to let that happen. I think he even pulled too much on Finestre, especially on the later parts when it became clear that you're not closing Yates anymore on the climb itself because the gap became to big.

As for UAE: Disasterclass in all almost every aspect. Why let WVA in the break when you have the strongest team to control. Even worse: Why give the break almost 10 minutes so you guarantee he even makes it over the top??? Performance wise they have been terrible in this last week outside Del Toro and Majka. I do understand not jumping after Yates immidiately because obviously you don't want Del Toro in a situation where he constantly gets 1-2 attacked by Carapaz and Yates but you need to act way earlier in terms of damage control.
From the sounds of DTs interview, I think they completely overestimated Carapaz and just slept on Yates. Carapaz is a smart rider but he's very "human", he has basically no alien performances and kind of never just puts 2 minutes into everybody. If you're THAT worried about Del Toros abilities on a long climb put someone in the break to do damage control after Finestre. But if you believe in his overall climbing abilities you can't just solely focus on Carapaz.

Overall, very happy to see UAE lose although I have nothing against Del Toro. Sad to see Carapaz not succeeding, he has been the most agressive and entertaining rider this race but in a way I'm also happy for Yates to close the chapter after 2018. Despite him riding for Visma.

Great post, fully agree on practically everything. UAE showed levels of disasterclassing that even Movistar in their Valverde/Landa/Nairo years didn't display. Also, it didn't feel like a team at all, McNulty denying any turns to save his 10th spot in GC? You saw Rafal Majka shaking his head in disbelief how they ended up in this position out of pure, tactical mismanagement.

Happy though cause another GT win by UAE would be bad for the sport.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

I think EF should have just ridden at Carapaz‘s 1 hour pace until the domestiques run out. Then Carapaz should have just done one full-gas punch and then tried to crack Del Toro. This strategy they did was just playing to Del Toro‘s strengths.

 

[Extinction]

If you wait until the Sterrato, UAE snailpace the first part and you only have an 25 minute effort left which Del Toro probably would prefer. But even moreso, the gap you'll get on the Visma doms at the top will probably be not that big, so even if you drop Del Toro there's a risk you're just getting mowed down on the rolling descent/lower parts of Sestriere by domestiques.
If he had the strongest team in the race, I agree. Make the climb super hard until the sterrato and then attack. But they clearly didnt.

Yea, if Carapaz was alone. However, it was in EF and Jumbo's interest to not let UAE dictate an easy pace, so if their doms could have ensured a tough ride up to the sterrato then that's when you put in a big attack. In any case, they underestimated Yates. When Carapaz with Del Toro on his wheel tried to get back to Yates, closing to 20 secs, that's where his previous attacks left him short of power.

 

[Unchained]

Except that he has no teammates capable of doing that. No, what I meant is at some point it became clear that Del Toro could answer the accelerations. Ok, then try to ride him of the wheel. But Carapaz has to do that all on his own.

Very true but the Del Toro dilemma was he was riding point instead of consistently behind McNulty, or Majka, and they drag him to Carapaz or Yates wheel instead of the other way around.
Del Toro burned match after match for marginal gains. Real nightmare scenario is if Tiberi and Gee would have had enough gas to stay in front , Del Toro would have likely been done a couple of days earlier. For me personally I was surprised he lasted this long doing nothing but counter attacking for @11-13 days. Can't imagine what things would have looked like with a competitive consistent Gee and Tiberi..

 

[Extinction]

That's old school. Where you didn't attack on Mortirolo, because tempo was enough. Attacks, you paid for that later. Nowadays they seem good enough to do the attacks and not pay later. I don't think Carapaz paid for the attacks. Or Del Toro for following. It was deciding not to follow or then chase Yates, decision by Del Toro, that made the diffference.

Carapaz clearly did when he got to 20 secs to Yates, but didn't have the energy to close. At that point Del Toro staying on the wheel made no sense. That's when he should have tried to leave Carapaz behind and catch Yates. If he had the energy, but chose to stay with Carapaz, it was an impardonable mistake.

 

[Leinster]

Well, they don't have the team to go a fast steady pace up the first kms. That's what they had. All in immediately. I would have waited a bit longer too to be honest, thought he would too, but was clear that with the weak mountain support Carapaz has, it wasn't going to be long before they do the "leadout" and he goes.

With that in mind, they really should have been working to put someone in the break. If, say, Asgreen had been available in the valley when Wout was, the tactics would have played out very differently.

And that applies to UAE too. Letting the guy at 1:21 have an unmarked domestique up the road was a major slip up.

 

[Escarabajo]

What's that animal that looks like it's always smiling for no apparent reason?

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

He had raced aggressively until Finestre and was out of power.

He got sick. Racing aggressively early in the Giro was probably not ideal for the third week, but with the illness it wouldn’t have mattered if he had raced more conservative or not. I believe he would’ve won that Giro easy without the illness, racing too aggressive or not early on.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Yea, if Carapaz was alone. However, it was in EF and Jumbo's interest to not let UAE dictate an easy pace, so if their doms could have ensured a tough ride up to the sterrato then that's when you put in a big attack. In any case, they underestimated Yates. When Carapaz with Del Toro on his wheel tried to get back to Yates, closing to 20 secs, that's where his previous attacks left him short of power.

That's the thing, their (EF) doms can't ensure that as we've seen all Giro long. If the were to "pace" the first half of the climb "hard", the GC group would've been 20 riders deep with probably 4 UAE doms. In no way is that a better scenario for Carapaz than what they did instead.
As for "underestimating" Yates, I think he was at no point in the race in a position to over or underestimate Yates as he always would've had to get rid of Del Toro first. Letting Yates go was not underestimating him, it was his only way to win at all that moment in the race. Which is beside the point that Yates was just stronger today and is overall the rider with the ability of producing a better climbing performance, just less consistent.

 

[hfer07]

Hats off to Simon Yates & Visma for pulling off this masterpiece

Inexperience played Del Toro and costed him the pink jersey - but hats off to him for such incredible Giro. He'll win it in a near future

Carapaz? He tried, and tried...... but with no plan at all. His gambit was "self deceiving" and dragged Del Toro along with it....