Isaac Del Toro thread

[Cycling111]

UAE should hire someone with a brain.

The most worrying thing is that he probably followed the car's recommendations.

Del Toro is less like Pogacar than some predicted.

Pogacar never lost anything acting like that. On the contrary, one of his defeats in the Tour was due to being
nonconformist in Granon and excessively brave.
In his first Vuelta, he finished on the podium thanks to an all-in attack at 40km.

In any case, I don't hold Del Toro responsible. There's only one Pogacar, and Ayuso's mistake in the past, or Del Toro, has been the expectations generated by comparisons with him.

But since Del Toro isn't the same as Pogacar, they need to guide him better from the car.

In UAE, they've gotten used to Pogacar winning alone. They're very useless; they should be grateful for a talent like Pogacar.
Visma won GTs with four different riders. UAE signs big names and doesn't win GTs or the major classics. They inflate their numbers in minor races.
If it weren't for Pogacar's talent, they wouldn't win those races due to directors obvious inability.

 

[AmRacer]

The most worrying thing is that he probably followed the car's recommendations.

Del Toro is less like Pogacar than some predicted.

Pogacar never lost anything acting like that. On the contrary, one of his defeats in the Tour was due to being
nonconformist in Granon and excessively brave.
In his first Vuelta, he finished on the podium thanks to an all-in attack at 40km.

In any case, I don't hold Del Toro responsible. There's only one Pogacar, and Ayuso's mistake in the past, or Del Toro, has been the expectations generated by comparisons with him.

But since Del Toro isn't the same as Pogacar, they need to guide him better from the car.

In UAE, they've gotten used to Pogacar winning alone. They're very useless; they should be grateful for a talent like Pogacar.
Visma won GTs with four different riders. UAE signs big names and doesn't win GTs or the major classics. They inflate their numbers in minor races.
If it weren't for Pogacar's talent, they wouldn't win those races due to directors obvious inability.

Having multiple GT winners in a team, will only cause trouble.

 

[Bombarolo]

Overall amazing performance.
His mistake today was not following Yates.

 

[AmRacer]

Overall amazing performance.
His mistake today was not following Yates.

Maybe he couldn't

 

[Ripper]

Well he lost, didn't he? If del Toro start pulling during Finestre Carapaz wins the giro, after Finestre it was useless. Del Toro rode for the podium and a new contract being a 21 former domestique, Carapaz launched a suicide attack and it backfired being a 30 plus probably last call for a win former gt winner.

Ummmmm??????

Only if he pulled and then cracked spectacularly. The descent and final climb actually suited del Toro more. I am quite positive he could have pulled back 30 seconds or more on Carapaz in the descent and final.

I like watching Carapaz and del Toro race, so not really 'for' either rider. While I would not say either raced really 'smart' today, del Toro definitely dropped the ball much more and lost more in the process.

EF and Carapaz may have overcooked the attacks early, but they also wanted to get rid of del Toro's teammates, which they did. After that, Carapaz tried to drop del Toro and to catch Yates, and could not. Del Toro nearly never traded a pull, until Carapaz basically started to implode. Post race del Toro commented on Yates being smart and experienced at pacing (in which case, why not follow him?) and that it was Carapaz's job to chase him because he was threatening Carapaz's 2nd place (poor logic and it turns out also incorrect)

There is a lot of BS going on post race, but if del Toro had the legs today, he absolutely would have followed Yates. All he had to do was follow ... it's not like he had to put time on anyone. Just don't let anyone within touching distance get away. I think he did not have the legs, and they played a bit of poker of using Carapaz to chase back Yates (which was just dumb) and hoped/thought Yates would blow up.

Finally, Yates is good at pacing a hard climb TT style. He made del Toro and Carapaz look a bit like chumps today. A good day for Yates to have really good legs.

 

[Ripper]

Maybe he couldn't

And this is exactly what I think happened. He could accelerate and then settle into a pace, as could Carapaz. But he could not sustain the pace that Yates was holding

 

[Bombarolo]

And this is exactly what I think happened. He could accelerate and then settle into a pace, as could Carapaz. But he could not sustain the pace that Yates was holding

Yates was not going to pace like that with Del Toro and Carapaz behind. Carapaz after Yates attacked launched an insane acceleration which almost brought Yates back and Del Toro followed him.
They should have just marked Yates as well. Not easy i'm sure but they way they approached the climb helped Yates massively who still delivered an insane performance, don't get me wrong.

 

[Cookster15]

No shame him being unable to follow Yates. Amazing performance for a rider with unknown grand tour ability prior to this Giro. Even today the benchmark Carapaz was unable to drop him on Finestre after 11 days wearing pink. This points to him being a massive grand tour contender for the future.

 

[YellowSocks]

The most worrying thing is that he probably followed the car's recommendations.

In the world of cycling, having been a cyclist makes you a manager or sports director and being the brother of the boss's housekeeper makes you a PR manager. Many people working in cycling (in sport in general, I feel) would benefit from having worked in other professional fields. Just to know what ‘professional’ means.
And when it comes to management, UAE is right up there.

 

[Cycling111]

No shame him being unable to follow Yates. Amazing performance for a rider with unknown grand tour ability prior to this Giro. Even today the benchmark Carapaz was unable to drop him on Finestre after 11 days wearing pink. This points to him being a massive grand tour contender for the future.

There's a lot of talk about Del Toro's attitude, but it's going unnoticed that Simon's climb was record.

 

[Peyroteo94]

There's a lot of talk about Del Toro's attitude, but it's going unnoticed that Simon's climb was record.

The record was very underwhelming. You put Finestre in the Giro 2024 and Pogacar would do a sub 57 minutes ride.

 

[Cycling111]

The record was very underwhelming. You put Finestre in the Giro 2024 and Pogacar would do a sub 57 minutes ride.

Disappointing, but Adam was 6 minutes slower

Let's not include Pogacar in the comparison.

It was a great time from Simon, who's going to be a domestique at the Tour and hasn't achieved this numbers for a while.

 

[AmRacer]

Disappointing, but Adam was 6 minutes slower

Let's not include Pogacar in the comparison.

It was a great time from Simon, who's going to be a domestique at the Tour and hasn't achieved this numbers for a while.

Adam probably didn't went full gas, why would he.

 

[Urbi27]

For me there were two moments when he made mistakes.

1. After Carapaz acceleration which almost brings back Yates he should pull to close that gap. It was necessary to maintain Carapaz's pace for another minute and he will have everything under control.
2. When they started decending, it was up to him to give everything to close the gap because at that moment he was loosing Giro and after his comments it's still hard to belive that he said 'ok' when Carapaz refused to cooperate. It was on the downhill he didn't risk that Carapaz gain 40 sec on the road to Sestiere.

Of course after all it was fantastic Giro, he has shown that he is able to win GT but the circumstances were extremely favorable for him and this does not have to be the same in the future.

 

[Unchained]

And this is exactly what I think happened. He could accelerate and then settle into a pace, as could Carapaz. But he could not sustain the pace that Yates was holding

Del Toro could only answer limited attacks, he has been trying to follow everything for more than a week, he made bad guess thinking that Yates would flame out.. Del Toro also needed to work the gap regardless, his personality assessment of Carapaz was crazy wrong, both guys thought that the race was too important to let Yates roll away, again both guys were wrong. Capapaz can think Del Toro was being petty by not pulling, but we saw the movie before, Del Toro does just a little less and squirts past in the sprint, same result as yesterday.. Del Toro tried to make the best of all this, Yates and Carapaz came to Giro to win, Del Toro had nothing but a daily surprise party. Second is beyond his wildest expectations. Yates very impressive, daily, but what he asked of Wout was awesome! Van Alert just drilled it, to the point I didn't think Yates could keep his wheel!! Both guys were flying and only the best would be ready for climbing after death march pace of Wout.

 

[Links2003]

No shame him being unable to follow Yates. Amazing performance for a rider with unknown grand tour ability prior to this Giro. Even today the benchmark Carapaz was unable to drop him on Finestre after 11 days wearing pink. This points to him being a massive grand tour contender for the future.

Of course you're right. Nobody expected him to end up on the podium. I think it was the gravel stage where his spare bike was in the middle on the car - which suggests that 4 bikes from other riders were more important for the team. The first 2 weeks he rode without help from the team. He might even have had more of a lead on some riders if the team hadn't followed for Ayuso. For example on Yates.

Nevertheless, a strange impression remains at the end. Was he much worse than Yates today? Probably not. Yates was perhaps not stronger than Carapaz. But either the team or he decided to ride only against Carapaz and when he didn't feel like it anymore, it was over. Even after that he didn't try to save anything.
He has everything he needs to become a successful rider. Certainly also in the overall rankings. But sometimes life turns out differently than you think. Especially at UAE, he won't always have a free ride. Who knows when the next chance to really shine will come. So in the end it's a shame - if someone had said before the Giro that he would win a stage, ride in pink for a long time and finish second overall, everyone would probably have said what a great success.

 

[Cycling111]

Del toro is not even close from Pogacar. Not even in mentality as we saw today. I don’t like pogacar not even a bit, but he is not a coward in terms of racing.

Pogacar won the Tour when he was 21. The numbers are relative. Due to clinic things, everybody is doing better numbers year after year.

You like Pogacar's winning mentality and you recognize that he is very good and brave, but you don't like him.

We don't all like the same things, but you like all of Pogacar's qualities but not him. Strange .

 

[Cycling111]

I was talking about Pogacar from the Vuelta 2019 not the Tour 2020. I agree that the mentality is different. Pogacar in that Vuelta went balls to the wall on stage 20.

The 2020 Tour is incomparable.

Compare the eight riders Jumbo finished the Tour with with the six riders (two of them sprinters) from the UAE snce the second week.

Pogacar had no choice that Tour. Besides, it wasn't so common for young riders to be in that situation.
Only Bernal, being a year older. But Bernal won the Tour with absolute dominance from Sky, and his real rival was G. Thomas, a teammate who finished second.

That situation for Pogacar is incomparable to Del Toro's today.
Pogacar situation was much more complicated. Even if Del Toro had won the Giro, it wouldn't have had the same value due to the difficulty.

Not to mention that Pogacar beat Roglic in his prime. Roglic was the best rider in the world at the time, Carapaz and Simon no.

 

[Alexandre B.]

His easy sprint at the end of the day is very sad, he should've fight for the Maglia Rosa with more bravery than that, instead of hiding behind Carapaz, Gee, Kielich and others.

 

[noob]

Del toro gave his all on Finestre, he is not pogi or vinge yet, he was a domestique like 10 days ago. Carapaz and uae are the loser of the day, del Toro in a way won today.

This!

 

[hayneplane]

Very frustrating today. Left the impression that there was more in the tank but a combination of inept tactics from the team car and maybe being scared to go too deep and risk cracking and missing top 5 entirely meant the chance to win was fumbled away meekly.

As said above the biggest hindsight moment was not closing the gap to Yates when Carapaz had closed around half the gap.

It would feel better if he had given everything he had and cracked than this surrender.

Maybe he can have his redemption arc like Simon Yates and go on to win Vuelta 2026.

 

[Red Rick]

I actually wonder if yesterday's finale played a part in Carapaz not helping out today. It was in both their interest to work together in the finale and Del Toro didn't really pull and mugged Carapaz for the seconds at the line.

 

[Unchained]

For me there were two moments when he made mistakes.

1. After Carapaz acceleration which almost brings back Yates he should pull to close that gap. It was necessary to maintain Carapaz's pace for another minute and he will have everything under control.
2. When they started decending, it was up to him to give everything to close the gap because at that moment he was loosing Giro and after his comments it's still hard to belive that he said 'ok' when Carapaz refused to cooperate. It was on the downhill he didn't risk that Carapaz gain 40 sec on the road to Sestiere.

Of course after all it was fantastic Giro, he has shown that he is able to win GT but the circumstances were extremely favorable for him and this does not have to be the same in the future.

You are right on..but subtle issues like depth of the field is gotta be top of the list for Del Toro, ..Pog, Remco, Upright Roglic, Jonas, Jorgenson, couple others would have had him back foot with ITT deficits.
Del Toro will need to improve dramatically. And Del Toro will need to get himself together for going deeper alone, can't expect to last when you are chasing more quality guys, add Remco or Roglic, to this Giro selection climbs and they would have really hurt Del Toro. Guy has bright bright future.. Also starting to wonder about UAE top heavy lineup. Ayuso, Pog, Joao Almeida, have more productive years ahead, Marc Soler will age out soon but so far 20 year old Jan Christen is coming soon..Del Toro is one of many

 

[Cycling111]

Matxin said that Del Toro was on the edge with Carapaz's latest attacks, that he was no longer closing the gap so easily and that he felt like he was going to explode.

 

[Urbi27]

He is really strong in ITT. The second one was on difficult condidions and it's hard to really compere.
In fact he has very similar advantages as young Pogi but he has to turn off the radio like Tadey did many times.

Sometimes it's better to loose after trying to win even ending one place down in GC then loosing without the fight.