Isaac Del Toro: ‘Respect to Visma for the way they played their cards, we couldn’t do anything’

At the end of a Giro d’Italia in which the pre-race favourites for the title have almost all fallen out of contention, it was perhaps inevitable that there would be one final twist. While Simon Yates went into the penultimate stage determined to chase away the memories that he’d been left with having lost the 2018 Giro on the slopes of the Colle de Finestre, few could have foreseen that the Briton would leapfrog race leader Isaac Del Toro and second-placed Richard Carapaz to claim the maglia rosa, least of all those two riders.

EF Education-EasyPost rider Carapaz stood slumped over his bike for some time after the stage finished, his disappointment palpable. When he eventually spoke to the media crowded in around him, the Ecuadorean said of Yates’s capture of the Giro title, “I don’t think that it was the strongest rider that won, but the most intelligent.”

Asked about the tactics of Del Toro, who refused to chase Yates when the Briton attacked on the Finestre, Carapaz said, “In the end, he lost the Giro. I don’t think he raced well and in the end the most intelligent rider won.”

Del Toro has been the revelation of this Giro, on the bike evidently, but also off it. He's always been ready to answer at length in Italian and English as well as in his native tongue of Spanish, and that continued as he reflected on his loss of the lead on the penultimate stage.

“I’m disappointed, personally, because I’ve lost the GC. But, at the end of the day, I can be happy because at the beginning, before the start in Albania, a lot of people didn’t believe that I could be here,” said the young Mexican post-stage, adding: “I’ve proved a lot about myself.”

Del Toro admitted that he knew the race had been lost even before he began the final climb to Sestriere. “I said to Wout van Aert before the finish that I already knew that I’d lost the GC and I had respect for the way Visma had played their cards. We couldn’t do anything,” confessed the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider.

“I was racing more defensively with Simon and Richard, and I was putting the pressure on Richard to follow Simon, because he was third on GC. At the end, the team, thankfully came back up to me. Of course, it was too late, because no one wanted to work with us.”

Del Toro said that he’s gained an incredible amount of experience over the past three weeks. “The team is always very confident in me in this type of situation. The problem has been me trying to believe what they tell me,” he said.

“It’s not good to lose, and I feel super disappointed, but I don’t want to cry on camera,” he continued. “But it’s like this in cycling. I have no regrets and, for sure, I’ll come back really, really strongly from this.”

Del Toro again offered his congratulations to Yates and his team. “Simon and Visma raced well,” he said. “But to be a great winner, you need to be a great loser. You have to understand this and I think that I'm a good loser. And chapeau to them, congrats.”