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

[ice&fire]

I've posted this in IDT thread when I meant to post it here:

Del Toro was afraid to lose the race to Carapaz in the final climb to Sestriere, but not to Yates. Totally rational and smart. Is there intelligent life at UAE?

 

[Froome]

Oh dear, it's all kicking off

https://twitter.com/x/status/1928822313077645319

"Del Toro today proved himself to be the most cold-hearted and cowardly man in the history of cycling. Richard Carapaz demonstrated why he's an Olympic champion and a living cycling legend. Simple."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1928828480428331442

Good for Simon, he took advantage of the fact that Isaac del Toro was just holding on to Carapaz's balls the entire race and was never able to put his own balls to win by fighting.

They are 100% right about del toro.

 

[kingjr]

Because he couldn’t—wasn’t that obvious?
I don’t agree that Del Toro lacked the strength. You can’t say that for sure. He covered every attack. At some point, you have to improvise—and that means starting to defend your leadership in the Giro. There’s a valid case that Carapaz should’ve started working with him. Sure, that carries some risk—but sitting back and doing nothing wasn’t just unwise, it was also heartless"

Yes, I believe that was my point

 

[Rackham]

Honestly it was a pretty legendary stage. It had everything that makes cycling great. Especially the pillow fight between Del Toro and Carapaz that'll hopefully spill over into future races.

It's good for the sport to have this sort of real high stakes, drama and antagonism between riders instead of robots jus hammering down watts on the pedals.

 

[Rou]

I've posted this in IDT thread when I meant to post it here:

Del Toro was afraid to lose the race to Carapaz in the final climb to Sestriere, but not to Yates. Totally rational and smart. Is there intelligent life at UAE?

It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. He responded to every attack of Carapaz casually dropping Derek Gee like a farmer and did not even care about Yates. When I saw him freewheeling on the descent it was too much for me. At worst case scenario they catch Yates, Carapaz drops him and he finishes second.
Now he still finished second but looks like a loser and lost the respect of a lot of people.

 

[Escarabajo]

I've posted this in IDT thread when I meant to post it here:

Del Toro was afraid to lose the race to Carapaz in the final climb to Sestriere, but not to Yates. Totally rational and smart. Is there intelligent life at UAE?

So basically He made the decision that He prefers to lose the Giro to Simon than to Carapaz. That is exactly what he said.

 

[will-10]

Gee's power file giving some insight into the wtf first kms on Finestre:

Entire climb 1h02m04: 407w
First 6m05: 477w
Final ~50m (where he rode mostly his own pace): 396w

I do think it was probably necessary for EF to explode things and isolate Del Toro, but that first 6-7 minutes isn't going to come for free for either Carapaz or Del Toro

 

[Sciatic]

Yates is a peaky climber, too. He had to make 4 jumps to get loose and still had the legs to see it through. The DS's in EF and UAE cars must have been losing their collective minds instead of forcing a collaboration.

Well that’s probably true. Neither had counted on such a strong Yates being out in front.

 

[Sciatic]

I've posted this in IDT thread when I meant to post it here:

Del Toro was afraid to lose the race to Carapaz in the final climb to Sestriere, but not to Yates. Totally rational and smart. Is there intelligent life at UAE?

Presented himself well, but what he’s saying doesn’t make sense for someone with the race win in his hands. Why would Carapaz work with him when that would mean not gaining time on the GC leader. Maybe he thought Carapaz was supposed to care about his 2nd place?

 

[Sciatic]

Honestly it was a pretty legendary stage. It had everything that makes cycling great. Especially the pillow fight between Del Toro and Carapaz that'll hopefully spill over into future races.

It's good for the sport to have this sort of real high stakes, drama and antagonism between riders instead of robots jus hammering down watts on the pedals.

Couldn’t agree more.

 

[Tim Cahill]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1928827883293704531

 

[Rou]

• Sunday at 3:58 PM

If UAE loses this race I want serious action from Dracula. This is not serious.


Dracula will now take these guys to his castle in Transylvania to teach them race tactics.

 

[James M]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1928827883293704531

Vampires are not suppose to be out in daylight. Hes properly just coping alot while trying not to be burned alive.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

I've posted this in IDT thread when I meant to post it here:

Del Toro was afraid to lose the race to Carapaz in the final climb to Sestriere, but not to Yates. Totally rational and smart. Is there intelligent life at UAE?

He thinks he did the smart thing. I'd have expected a lot of things but really not that. He thought Carapaz had to chase and then when Carapaz didn't want to work for him in the valley he just decided better to losse against Yates than try. But he rode a very smart race he says. Truly not the brightest candle.

Edit: I mean I think that riders are often being overly critizised for their decision making while riding in the moment and often on the limit, without TV knowdledge, but to say that it was smart with hindsight of loosing the Giro by minutes is really quite something. The way he explains it he in full conciousness dicided that the way he rode was the smartest way to ride. And stuck to that assesment after the stage. Now I am even starting to repeat myself because I find it so hard to believe lol.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

While we can criticise some of the actions from Carapaz, this stage wouldn't have exploded like this if it hadn't been for EF nuking it from the bottom of Finestre. I assume it was so powerful that it made the TV in the UAE car switch to a cooking show or something.

Maybe they thought that watching the 4 screen option would maximise their knowledge of what was going on, while not realising that there are no time gaps displayed in that version.

 

[ice&fire]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1928827883293704531

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

 

[Peyroteo94]

So this Giro was epic in 3 stages but dreadful in almost 15 stages. I just hope they don't make a route similar to this one in the future.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

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

Esteban Chaves.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

So, I'm curious, was Yates' behavior at the end of Stage 19 (we had a plan, we didn't follow it) all part of the smokescreen to convince others he was no longer a threat? Probably not, but still interesting to know what that was all about.

He certainly wasn't showing much confidence in his morning interview.

 

[Tim Cahill]

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

Quokka!

 

[TastyGroceries]

He thinks he did the smart thing. I'd have expected a lot of things but really not that. He thought Carapaz had to chase and then when Carapaz didn't want to work for him in the valley he just decided better to losse against Yates than try. But he rode a very smart race he says. Truly not the brightest candle.

Edit: I mean I think that riders are often being overly critizised for their decision making while riding in the moment and often on the limit, without TV knowdledge, but to say that it was smart with hindsight of loosing the Giro by minutes is really quite something. The way he explains it he in full conciousness dicided that the way he rode was the smartest way to ride. And stuck to that assesment after the stage. Now I am even starting to repeat myself because I find it so hard to believe lol.

I think it's at least partly a matter of pride rather than believing it truly 100%.

 

[Cycling111]

Simon's ascent 4:52 faster than Froome.

 

[nightowl]

He thinks he did the smart thing. I'd have expected a lot of things but really not that. He thought Carapaz had to chase and then when Carapaz didn't want to work for him in the valley he just decided better to losse against Yates than try. But he rode a very smart race he says. Truly not the brightest candle.

Edit: I mean I think that riders are often being overly critizised for their decision making while riding in the moment and often on the limit, without TV knowdledge, but to say that it was smart with hindsight of loosing the Giro by minutes is really quite something. The way he explains it he in full conciousness dicided that the way he rode was the smartest way to ride. And stuck to that assesment after the stage. Now I am even starting to repeat myself because I find it so hard to believe lol.

I kind of get what he’s saying though. If you evaluate that your only chance of winning once over Finestre is if Carapaz cooperates, which in my opinion is an accurate judgement of the situation given Yates has Van Aert with him, then riding to defend second once Carapaz refuses to cooperate makes sense. It’s an extremely cynical way to look at a situation, but I think there is some logic to it.

 

[tobydawq]

This must be one of the most entertainment single mountains I have ever seen. A shame that Carapaz and Del Toro did what they did in the end, but still an extremely good stage which will go down in history.

 

[EddyMazzoleni]

this must be relatively close to the top, so probably yes

Thanks, On Rai they said Caruso and Pellizzari attacked from the group behind, but than it was not clear how everything went