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

[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

 

[Leinster]

Yates did clearly an amazing performance, still I wonder why Ef were trying to launch Finestre like it was Redoute or something like that. I think they somewhat cooked Carapaz by doing that.

In hindsight, Carapaz launched way too early on Finestre.

Vaughters was on earlier in the week saying that Carapaz gets better when there’s multiple hard climbs in a row, but instead they went full gas on the lower slopes of the first hard climb of the day.

They burnt their men so hard that their 2nd best rider on the day was Honore, over half hour down.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

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.

Once in the valley whence all is allready lost, yes. But beforehand he wheelsucked almost the entire climb untill they were like 2 minutes behind, on the assumption that Carapaz needs to work and he doesn't, so he didn't cooperate with Carapaz. To think that's smart is really something for me, because he was always loosing the Giro the way he rode, taking away the, albeit maybe small, chance of victory.
Makes little sense to me to say, with hindsight, that this was still the smart thing to do it. I also wonder what Giannetti is going to say after evaluation, because at the finish he said he still didn't know what happend on the climb. Which is pretty amazing to me but anyways.
The saving grace for del Toro to me only is that he was loosing this no matter what in my opinion. They won't catch super fast Yates and they're always gonna be smoked by van Aert in the valley. So whatever his decision was, the main difference is optics. But the optics are very bad indeed, because he looked like a moron, especially with this silly sprint in the end.
Overall he's young, he raced stupidly and he lost a race he was going to loose today anyway. There's stuff to learn from it and in a way it's pretty funny to see UAEs tactics all over the Giro.

 

[fbjim]

Del Toro should go to movistar. Imagining him shitting up a chase group in a movistar jersey while like Brandon McNulty randomly gets 4 minutes in the Vuelta. I'm imagining it

 

[ice&fire]

Simon's ascent 4:52 faster than Froome.

Froome's is the slowest "best time of the day", which is normal because that day the finish was much further away than usual. Rujano's time was the benchmark.

 

[EddyMazzoleni]

Exactly Finestre is a climb of attrition. You set a steady hard pace, without shooting all your bullets in the beginning. How could EF have thought attacking from the bottom was a good idea?

Well it would make sense if you had like 3 minutes to gain and you need to really drop the other guy, but I think in this situation a more controlled pace a an attack further up the climb would have been better. Also start and stop doesn't really help to drop someone like del Toro.

 

[EddyMazzoleni]

In hindsight, Carapaz launched way too early on Finestre.

Vaughters was on earlier in the week saying that Carapaz gets better when there’s multiple hard climbs in a row, but instead they went full gas on the lower slopes of the first hard climb of the day.

They burnt their men so hard that their 2nd best rider on the day was Honore, over half hour down.

That would be consistent with Carapaz history. But then maybe they should have been more aggressive yesterday

 

[AmRacer]

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.

Mad Mads 😃

 

[Red Rick]

Has someone checked on @Gigs_98. Is he even alive?

 

[The fridge in the blue trees]

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.

Of course they will make similar routes. It works! It works!
No, it really doesn't.
It was a nice series of pretty exciting stages. But unimportant for the GC. Then the last week, all open on Finestre, big change of maglia rosa, of course now Vegni and co are convinced they did everything right. And will do more of the same next year. Of course we had the same reversal in 2018 with a much better route, but who remembers that. I fear they are happy with how it all worked in the last years, the "BIG DECISION" on the last GC day. worked every year except with Pogacar, it made the race worse too, maybe not in the Hindley year where they were all so close together and the route was actually still better. But 23 and 25 certainly suffered from the big event planned at the end. Delivered for RCS probably, winner wasn't known till said big event. Sadly we're stuck with that.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

In hindsight, Carapaz launched way too early on Finestre.

Vaughters was on earlier in the week saying that Carapaz gets better when there’s multiple hard climbs in a row, but instead they went full gas on the lower slopes of the first hard climb of the day.

They burnt their men so hard that their 2nd best rider on the day was Honore, over half hour down.

It was the only hard climb of the day, to be fair.

Has someone checked on @Gigs_98. Is he even alive?

He seems to have disappeared about 8 hours ago, so that does line up with the point where brain activity was last detected inside the UAE camp. I sure hope gigs has survived though.

 

[ice&fire]

Well it would make sense if you had like 3 minutes to gain and you need to really drop the other guy, but I think in this situation a more controlled pace a an attack further up the climb would have been better. Also start and stop doesn't really help to drop someone like del Toro.

They probably thought that one minute at the summit of Finestre wasn't enough because del Toro would get some time back in the final kms.

 

[MrTea1976]

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.

This has been a good Giro. Lots of good racing.

 

[pelotonIQ]

Ok, fair. Lose the Giro then. The race is not against Carapaz only, that is just plain stupid.

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.

 

[nightowl]

Once in the valley whence all is allready lost, yes. But beforehand he wheelsucked almost the entire climb untill they were like 2 minutes behind, on the assumption that Carapaz needs to work and he doesn't, so he didn't cooperate with Carapaz. To think that's smart is really something for me, because he was always loosing the Giro the way he rode, taking away the, albeit maybe small, chance of victory.
Makes little sense to me to say, with hindsight, that this was still the smart thing to do it. I also wonder what Giannetti is going to say after evaluation, because at the finish he said he still didn't know what happend on the climb. Which is pretty amazing to me but anyways.
The saving grace for del Toro to me only is that he was loosing this no matter what in my opinion. They won't catch super fast Yates and they're always gonna be smoked by van Aert in the valley. So whatever his decision was, the main difference is optics. But the optics are very bad indeed, because he looked like a moron, especially with this silly sprint in the end.
Overall he's young, he raced stupidly and he lost a race he was going to loose today anyway. There's stuff to learn from it and in a way it's pretty funny to see UAEs tactics all over the Giro.

If he indeed could’ve made up time on the climb, then yeah it definitely wasn’t smart. He didn’t look like someone who had much left there though, the way he was getting half-dropped every time there was a slight increase in pace.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Del Toro should go to movistar. Imagining him shitting up a chase group in a movistar jersey while like Brandon McNulty randomly gets 4 minutes in the Vuelta. I'm imagining it

Marc Soler has taught him well

 

[The fridge in the blue trees]

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.

No, makes little sense. He refused to ride in the climb. Afraid to be attacked and dropped by Carapaz. This makes sense. But once Yates advantage went up over 40-50" taking that risk would have made sense too.
Asking Carapaz to ride with him in the valley then, he can try, but it certainly made no sense to Carapaz. Del Toro had answered every acceleration by Carapaz, Del Toro hadn't cared at all about how much time he gave Yates. Then it's now Del Toro's job to get back the time he didn't mind giving away earlier. Losing 40" on the way to Sestriere to Carapaz looked highly unlikely, even if Del Toro rides all alone. But if he wanted help, maybe he should have thought about Yates a bit earlier. Collaborate with Carapaz in the climb.

In hindsight, Carapaz launched way too early on Finestre.

Vaughters was on earlier in the week saying that Carapaz gets better when there’s multiple hard climbs in a row, but instead they went full gas on the lower slopes of the first hard climb of the day.

They burnt their men so hard that their 2nd best rider on the day was Honore, over half hour down.

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.

Well it would make sense if you had like 3 minutes to gain and you need to really drop the other guy, but I think in this situation a more controlled pace a an attack further up the climb would have been better. Also start and stop doesn't really help to drop someone like del Toro.

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

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1928823018551128225

Carapaz's anger at Del Toro: "He lost the Giro, he didn't know how to race well."

The inquest has started

I think the Spanish is a little more nuanced: others will be more attuned to it, but I would see that as a comment on inexperience rather than stupidity.

 

[Poursuivant]

Gimondi, Coppi and Bartali.

Pretty good company to be in.

 

[noob]

That kid doing his best Martinez impression to Del Toro at 29 km

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Looks like I picked the worst possible stage to miss in its entirety. I got a lot of reading to do

 

[Extinction]

Well it would make sense if you had like 3 minutes to gain and you need to really drop the other guy, but I think in this situation a more controlled pace a an attack further up the climb would have been better. Also start and stop doesn't really help to drop someone like del Toro.

You do it like a TT, start hard, but with something in reserve for the second part, in this case sterrato, then go as hard as you can till the top. What you don't do is violent attacks, a pace you can't maintain, slow down, accelerate again until you are pooped. You won't go as fast over the distance.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1928820781523374502

View: https://x.com/giroditalia/status/1928820781523374502


Beautiful 😍

Totally understand why this is the media take on the day, and of course Yates's big time loss was on Finestre day, but if I remember correctly he had been adrift (and unwell?) from very early on. Finestre may have determined the extent of his losses that day, but was not the cause of it.

Or is my memory confused?