A final spin in Rome. Today feels like a footnote after yesterday’s Alpine conclusion but the sprinters have had few chances and several hauled themselves over mountains just for today.
The Finestre of Opportunity: the early breakaway got bigger as more riders jumped across and among the last to make it was Wout van Aert. It was ok to let him in the move, but UAE and EF made the mistake of letting the break take almost ten minutes’ lead which meant Van Aert might be able to get up and over the Finestre and to relay Simon Yates on the valley road to Sestriere. If Yates was there of course.
EF launched Richard Carapaz on the early slopes of the Finestre, they had to because the squad doesn’t have climbers able to last longer into the climbs but it was a good tactic too to put Del Toro under pressure from the start rather than let UAE hypnotise everyone into a slumber.
Del Toro followed, he had to and this set up a duel, Carapaz attacking over and over but he could not shake Del Toro. Behind Simon Yates jumped away from the others on the way out of the village of Meani di Susa and quickly bridged across. He attacked the Latin American duo almost immediately, then went again and again. The fourth time was lucky, an incisive move tracking the inside line of a bend as he went away.
Carpaz kept attacking Del Toro and his accelerations almost got them back to Yates but it was a few metres short and left Yates clear. From here Yates just began to out-climb his rivals, all on the same hairpins where he’d abandoned the maglia rosa back in 2018.
Yates started to open up space. This might have given him psychological boost while Carapaz had the mental burden of Del Toro on his wheel. His every attack only saw the maglia rosa winch his way back to Carapaz’s rear wheel. Crucially this is where Del Toro stayed, and not chasing meant Simon Yates was now taking plenty of time, and climbing the Finestre in record time.
Yates had started 1m21s down on Del Toro but the Gulf of Mexico grew wider and soon he was virtual maglia rosa. This was still no prompt for Del Toro to chase, presumably he was ragged from responding to the initial attacks and well into a very long climb which seems, for now, to be his relative weak point. To work would have been to help Carapaz and still finish second at best, probably third, or worst, implode and slip off the podium.
Yates had 1m40s over the top of the Finestre and soon found Wout van Aert ahead. This was precious help but by now the gap was made and Del Toro and Carapaz were stuck with each other. It was here they conceded the race to Yates, at times sitting more upright on the descent than during the climb, arms straight rather than elbows bent. The gap only grew as Van Aert pulled and paced for over 10km helping to build an impregnable lead.
Chris Harper won the stage, climbing away on the Finestre to take his biggest career win.
The Route: 143km and 600m of vertical gain. A neutral parade across to the Vatican to meet and greet the new Pope. Then a trip to the coast at Ostia, Rome-on-Sea, before going back to the capital and eight laps of 9.5km.
The Contenders: Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Olav Kooij (Visma-LAB) and Casper Van Uden (Picnic-PostNL) all have a win each and seem the most plausible contenders, other sprinters have either gone home or the likes of Sam Bennett (Decathlon-Ag2r) or Gerben Thijssen (Intermarché) have struggled to make an impact. Van Uden is without lead-out man Bram Welten which makes things harder for him and Kooij just seems the quickest but no two sprints are the same.
This few sprinters does make it open to others with a late move but there are not many specialists left. Maybe Kasper Asgreen (EF) for a surprise flyer?
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Kooij |
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Groves, Van Uden |
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Asgreen, Pedersen |
Weather: sunny and 30°C.
TV: KM0 is at 15.25 and the finish is forecast for 18.45 CEST.
Postcard from Rome
The local on today’s stage? Mauro Vegni, the race director was born in Tuscany but grew up in Rome and worked here too.
Vegni took over as Giro direttore in 2014 after his predecessor Michele Acquarone was suspended at the same time as organisers RCS announced millions had gone missing from their bank accounts. Acquarone said he was innocent but it took six years to clear his name by which time of course he’d got well away from sport.
This might well be Vegni’s last Giro and it’s in keeping with his style that he’s mentioned this in passing rather than making an event out if. No rest day press conference where he holds court to anoint the replacement. He’s 67 now, the retirement age in Italian. Keep an eye on Stefano Allocchio, his deputy
Vegni rose up the ranks via organising other races which explains his organiser’s organiser tendency and perhaps why he’s sometimes ruffled feathers in interviews; his peer at the Tour de France Christian Prudhomme was a journalist who became France’s lead TV commentator before switching to ASO which explains the smooth talking; over at the Vuelta Javier Guillén joined organisers Unipublic to work as their in-house lawyer before moving up the ranks. It shows there’s no career path if you fancy directing a grand tour.
Guillén and Prudhomme have recognisable course designs and even innovation, Vegni has been almost antithetical and certainly more traditional . Internet forums might vent but the race can’t go past your house every year or up my favourite climb. But that’s been fine, and the Vegni Giri have often had long stages, often plenty of time trials and the big climbs saved for late in the third week.
Race organisation seems a thankless task, get it right and the riders are the stars; if something goes wrong the director is blamed. It’s a difficult job for the other 11 months too. In fact it’s many jobs in one: event management, media figurehead, business operations, course design, logistics, regulations and plenty of political schmoozing. A lot of this is delegated so the figurehead role is notable; you might think Vegni is the boss of the race but the President is media mogul Urbano Cairo and the powerful figure is Paolo Bellino, all pictured above.
If this is Vegni’s last time in the lead he deserves recognition for keeping the show on the road.
Sprinting is a strange beast to stay on top for long. Which makes Cav’s stay at or near enough to the top for so long remarkable.
Sam Bennett doesn’t even rate a star. truthfully i didn’t realise he was in the race. In fact i thought he had retired or had some long term illness.
Tough on Bennett. He’s often thrived when the team are fully behind him and pump him up; this time knowing he’s not going to the Tour de France, that his contract is up and he’s going to be replaced by Olav Kooij… it’s not worked out.
In line with operatic drama, it was n’t over until the fat lady sang.
Chapeau Yates and Visma – buried the ghost of 2018. He should send a bottle ot two to EF for thanks for the help.
Big question is where were team UAE when Del Toro was struggling? 2 men down and after 3 weeks, fatigue caught up with them?
Carapaz knows now how Nibali felt in 2019. Arguably the 2 guys who lit up the race came 2nd and 3rd but as Mads Pedersen said, you sometimes have to race smart to win.
Grazie Vegni for all the work of sometimes trying to square the circle.
I really don’t see why Del Toro and UAE aren’t getting more criticism. I appreciate he’s only 21 but that was the worst tactical riding I’ve seen in a long, long time. Sitting in the maglia rosa and to be so obstinate as to refuse to ride whilst someone else wheels away up the mountain feels extremely disrepectful to the race and all the work his teammates have put in. Sure there’s the risk of carrying Carapaz and getting jumped later on, but to not even *try* is way worse. To win the sprint at the end with seemingly so much left in the legs whilst losing the maglia rosa without even putting up a fight is a really disappointing way to finish.
AW – I couldn’t agree more. It was some of the worst ‘tactics’ I have seen in a long time. Why would you not give everything that you had to try and chase Yates down? And why did he just sit up after the climb? It was incredible. The return of Lampre.
I fully agree. I suspect the race was lost for del Toro when they had reached the top of the Finestre, but what followed was unpleasant to watch, and he came across as a sulking child. What an undignified way for a race leader to relinquish the lead. I don’t know if this was a call from the team car, but I will struggle to cheer for him for a while. The same is also true for Pellizzari. I normally quite like it when young riders are a little cocky, but I prefer to see it on the road rather than post-stage.
I didn’t have any problem with him refusing to work on the road to Sestriere – the race was already lost by then…
I seemed clear to me, that if Yates could get over the Finestre with 30 seconds AND WvA was still ahead, that the race lead would be in jeopardy…so what I don’t understand is Del Toro refusing to work on the Finestre to the extent that Yates got a 1min40 advantage. Perhaps Del Toro was on his limit – certainly he seems like a rider with a real poker face; someone who looks absolutely fine even though they’re on the rivet. So it’s hard to judge from looks alone, but it did seem like he had more to give, and his sprint at the end suggests that too…
Once Yates was 45 seconds to a minute ahead, Del Toro’s biggest risk to pink was no longer a Carapaz counter attack, but rather Yates riding away to the win. And yet he did nothing to limit the damage. I only can surmise that either he was on his absolute limit (which didn’t look to be the case) or it was a humongous miscalculation by him and/or his DS’s!
I agree with your comments regarding del Toro’s approach to the Finestre. However, as others have already said, he might have been on the limit at that point. He has been hard to read. What I found so irritating was not that he didn’t work for Carapaz on the way to Sestriere, but that he persistently demanded that Carapaz continue to work for him, which was ludicruous in several ways. Also, there is a middle ground between free-wheeling and dragging your opponent to the finish line at full speed, and if he was cooked, he could have initiated a gentler chase and see where that leads. It was his duty to do that. Form alliances as best as you can, and show that you respect the jersey. Well, as everybody agrees, it probably would have been futile, as Yates was too strong, and van Aert still being ahead was the final nail in the coffin for the chase. Hats off to Yates, of course! What a magnificent story. A deserving and likeable winner.
Yes he was definitely getting into Carapaz for not working which was just absurd at that stage. Going down without a fight like that will haunt him for some time I think.
It was prudent to ease up and wait for the team, since Giro was lost anyway. If he had worked, he could have become cooked and Carapaz could jump on the last steep part.
The final sprint was bizarre, though.
Exactly where I ended up in my thinking. Until Yates had a minute, it was on Carapaz to chase, but once del Toro’s overall lead was threatened, he was obligated to work. Which means that he should have been working on what, the last third of that climb? To get over on Carapaz’ wheel and then expect him to work with him was an unreasonable ask.
And props to Carapaz. He’s already got his Giro win, so 2nd or 3rd didn’t matter as much. No gifts.
100%. It was the upper portion of the Finestre where the race was lost. Especially insane knowing that WVA was waiting.
A lot of the period after Simon Yates first went in front, the gap was only 10-15 seconds. Del Toro could and should have tried to close this gap one of the times Carapaz surged and got the gap down to 10+ seconds. Once the gap was 1:40, it was already likely too late.
I’d posit that Del Toro might have known he was close to going into the red and he didn’t want to ‘do a Yates’ by trying to match Yates on Finestre. So he made the decision to mark Carapaz and hope Yates faltered. By the time they were descending, with Wout now helping Simon, the win was gone so why work with Carapaz on your wheel when you know he’s going to attack in the last few k and suddenly you’re 3rd on the podium?
I actually think it was a pretty mature performance. I also think his demeanour after the race shows he knows it went as well as it could have.
I wonder how much it played on Del Toros mind that Carapaz had “played the cinema” in previous stages before he had attacked and being close to the red himself didn’t want to do too much initially for fear of being dropped. Then by the time Yates had got a real gap it was too late and he knew he had to ride flat out and risk it all.
There also seemed to be times on the descent where he could have perhaps gapped Carapaz!
Really fascinating to watch and lots of similarities to 2018 where the gap ballooned over the climb. I also wonder what was going through WvA’s head after Yates finish line outburst yesterday…
“I also wonder what was going through WvA’s head after Yates finish line outburst yesterday…”
Curious what outburst you mean? Yates’s tearfulness, or something he said that I missed?
Sorry, I meant after stage 19 – he said the team hasn’t ridden to plan then his DS Marc Reef said that they had. Think Daniel Freibe first reported on it. Then he came out to say that it was heat of the moment etc.
I took it that Simon Yates was saying they had a plan but it didn’t work.
Think that’s the thing though that in the descent, if he goes alone it’s him versus Yates who has Wout.
All I know is that if I were in a position to win a GT and lost it, there’s only one reason I wouldn’t be upset at the finish and that’s because I knew it could have been worse.
Del Toro comes across as a nice young man who may well also be just a very positive lad but surely he also wants to win? His reaction screams, “I’m okay about it because I did my best”. If he believed he’d messed up and had been capable of bringing back Yates, I find it hard to believe he’d be smiling just after crossing the line.
They are getting criticism pretty much everywhere else. And rightly so. I think the host here sometimes tries to take a different perspective, a considered and even slightly contrary take compared to the mainstream sites.
It was good to highlight the tactical error of letting WvA get such a lead so he could crest the mountain ahead of the peleton. Having said that the race was won by the time Yates bridged across anyway.
We’ll never know if Del Toro would have had the legs to stay in pink yesterday, but it would have been nice to at least try. He looked so good in it..
No disrespect to him, at 21 he’s bagged a superb result, I blame the DS’s more than the rider, it was a fearsome stage for sure!
@AW. Arrogance perhaps but yes, poor tactics, very poor tactics, not that I am upset at uae losing.
Harper’s bizarre!
I am trying to work out if Mexico should impose tariffs on Ecuador or if Ecuador should impose tariffs on Mexico.
In light of what happened on the road, they should both express anger that the other country is going to impose tariffs, but neither country actually decide to impose tariffs.
Ms/Mr Inrng, I know it’s not really the style of your obviously amazing blog, but I’d love to hear you editorialize a bit more about the EF-Carapz/UAE-Del Toro tactics if you were willing. I found my mind spinning…your remarks so far suggest there was something understandable in Del Toro’s tactics.
What an end to the race, and once again wonderful commentary along the way. Thank you!
I think UAE’s big mistake with hindsight was allowing Van Aert up the road and to let the move take nine minutes. It meant Yates got the tow but also had something to aim for, you can imagine the radio talk, “come on, Wout is waiting” etc.
Then on the Finestre Del Toro knew he had to match Carapaz’s attacks and this was compounded when it looked like it was just down to them. But Yates made it across and put in a sharp attack and nobody could follow, Carapaz just couldn’t either. So soon after Del Toro realised he just had to track Carapaz and hope Yates was climbing like he’d been in recent days… only he wasn’t and climbed at record pace.
The short version of it all is that Yates started the day in range of the maglia rosa and had great legs when he needed them.
In all fairness weren’t UAE down a few riders or was it just Ayuso?
I thought the commentary was a touch too harsh on Del Toro – and Geraint’s podcast after, for me Brunyeel’s opinion was the best, and was similar to you that the big mistake was letting WVA not only go clear but also gain 10mins to be at the top before Yates.
As for Del Toro, I think people need to go a little easier on him? This was an extremely unusual situation to be alone with your two rivals so early on a decisive climb, that very rarely happens let alone when you’re 21.
And we should remember Carapaz has dropped him this week so he was right to be cautious, plus it was Carapaz who initiated the hostilities so I thought initially Del Toro was right to put the pressure on him to work.
Obviously Del Toro should’ve started working once the gap was 1 minute to Yates or at least the last 5km of the climb – but that’s why I think this was such a freak scenario, because by that point we were 10km into the climb and the bad blood between Carapaz and Del Toro had already built making any alliances impossible.
Usually this kind of moment would be in last last 7-5km of a meaningful climb without a descent after, so following attacks riders usually drop hostilities and work together around 4km to go knowing more attacks will follow in the final kms… but yesterday was just very very strange as EF went from the gun on a monster climb with a 25km section afterwards…
My gut feeling is yes Del Toro made a bit of a mistake not riding the end of the climb and especially the valley after (that valley section was hard to watch, Del Toro should’ve put his foot down immediately the crested the climb, I thought he must not know the situation!) but we shouldn’t blame him entirely for what was quite an odd situation in the first place.
He realized he would tow Carapaz to Sestriere with the danger of losing second place.
Losing 2nd place? There’s basically no difference between 2nd and 3rd. This is what Carapaz knew and UAE astonishingly did not.
Cd’s right, here. I don’t know why there isn’t more comment about it. I think Yates did have it on the day but it’s disappointing to see such stubbornness in pink.
There is a middle ground between sitting on Carapaz wheel and “towing him to Sestriere”.
1+++. IMHO Wout was the decisive factor
Van Aert was nothing without Yates also putting more than a minute into the two best climbers in the race to that point.
As incredible as van Aert was in support of Yates, the way Del Toro was riding Yates probably could have won without him.
100%. In hindsight both UAE and EF could have benefited from satellite riders up the road. The stage design was right for it too, with the valley road and shallower climb after the big one. In the Tour it seemed like the GC teams always covered each other in the breakaway.
I agree with you, but it seems one of the unwritten rules in cycling is that you defend your leader’s jersey… Loose it without defending it makes the story very hard to apprehend. Even if everything you say is true, at one point, even at 21, you come up with the idea of “foutu pour foutu, autant perdre avec les honneurs”, which I wouldn’t know how to translate exactly (“I lost anyway, let’s do it in an honourful manner”). The stage would have been nicer to see from a spectator’s side, and, would he have saved or lost his jersey, he would have had a lot of sympathy – the stage could have been remembered for good reasons. Now I think he altered a lot of his charisma. I really can’t understand how you can accept to let it go so easily when you’re a champion. Let’s hope he won’t regret it…
Pleased for Yates whom I have followed and liked since his first year with Orica while yesterday I was stuck in a restaurant with friends and reduced to tracking his progress through furtive glances on my phone. It’s been an unpredictable and thrilling tour, partly due to the absence of GT stars Pogacar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel.
Over the moon for Yates.
But I can’t help feeling he’s extremely tough to warm to… sure he’s a nice guy but it’s very hard to feel his and his brothers personality on screen. They remind me a tiny bit of Andy Murray pre his tears at losing his first Wimbledon final and the UK finally understood him.
I actually always quite liked Murray as there was a sense of low key sarcasm to most his comments and suspect both Yates have a similar humour but we’ve seen it less, so they just seem very quiet, slightly reserved and extremely serious.
It’s a shame Simon’s tears were hidden behind the sunglasses yesterday.
It’s no secret that the media find the same, trying to get something out of the Yates brothers after a stage is hard work.
But there are some longer interviews, I remember a youtube team video with Simon Yates where he talked for a long time and the more things went on, the more relaxed and expansive he got, like anyone. Plus assuming he finishes today he’s got two grand tours while, to pick one rider, Guillaume Martin can talk in poetry but hasn’t ever had a big win.
Hell of a way for Vegni to ride into the sunset. He goes out with a fantastic race that kept us guessing right until the end. How do you say “chapeau” in Italian?
Is that it for Vengi?
He’s had a pretty epic tenure?
My understanding from the Cycling Podcast (at least I think it was them) is that he is stepping out of his current role. Don’t recall if he’s retiring completely, but it seems like it’s going to be a major change.
I think they said the situation is undecided.
Cycling seems to have narratives that other sports dont have, perhaps elements of history and the odd combination of teams in an individual sport.
Redemption came for not only Simon Yates (interesting, if true, that he went up the Finestre quicker than Chris Froome) but for (Jumbo) Visma. This time there was a rider up front to help pull to the finish. Lessons learnt and a perfectly executed plan.
Questions must be asked of UAE, it has to be assumed that the DS told Isaac del Toro to stick with Richard Carapaz rather than attempt to chase down Simon Yates (though also possible he didnt have the capacity to do so). Where was the rest of the team? I have seen comments that Adam Yates tried to get back to help but didnt make it. I also didnt understand why Richard Carapaz didnt slow right down to force Isaac del Toro to chase, it was his only real chance to catch Simon Yates. He is a very experienced rider and was only interested in winning, a podium place was really not what he came for.
All in all another great stage over the Finestre
Bit of redemption for Greenedge as well with Harper’s excellent victory
Yes, getting the Cima Coppi and winning the queen stage on the day that Yates got his own redemption was pretty sweet.
They parted on good terms and a number of their riders and staff appeared to be even happier with the result for Yates than his own team were.
I was going to joke that the team should sack Matt White more often, we still don’t know what happened for him to leave so suddenly. Plapp and Harper were supposed to go for GC but these plans didn’t work and they changed to stage wins and this salvaged things nicely. But from a team owner perspective it could be that Plapp is being paid to deliver more than breakaway wins.
You may be right about hoping for more than stage wins from Plapp. But wasn’t the stage win Plapp’s first ever professional win (outside national champs). Is hoping for “more than stage wins” a reasonal hope from the owner?
Looking at the UCI rankings for the relegation update and the team are having a dire time. They’re safe from being dropped for now but the likes of Cofidis, Tudor, Picnic, Q36.5 have scored more points if you watch these things. Without knowing more it can come down to a team owner asking where their millions are going.
I think Froome still had more than 80km to cover, and there was no “Wout is waiting” in his ear.
Yes – from what I’ve heard Yates went up 5mins faster than Froome.
BUT – as Anonymous notes we have to remember that there was 80kms left to go so it was a very different scenario. Incomparable really.
I think the big thing was that Yates climbed it un under 1 hour (59:23) which has never been done till now. It’s a pretty unbelievable achievement… even if you’d suspect there are a few other riders in the world who could go faster given the chance.
It really helped that Yates was allowed to ride almost the entire climb at his own pace. One of the great “what if’s” of this race is what would have happened if Del Toro had closed to him the last time he and Carapaz were close. I’m not buying that Del Toro was on his limit, at least not then. From the moment he decided not to, Yates just set the metronome and clicked right up the climb exactly as he chose.
Oh Yee, a great “what if” question. Yates may not have had such a good Finestre had he been put under pressue by the Maglia Rosa.
If Carapaz and Del Toro are sitting on his wheel he’s not going to just keep on riding the same pace. I think Del Toro had a chance to get up to him with Carapaz early on, but of course we’ll never know.
Yates spent ages only 10-15 seconds ahead of Del Torro and Carapaz while the later two played games, with Carapaz surging and slowing. Yates could have been caught fairly easily in the opening third of the climb. By the time they got to the gravel section is may already have been too late.
Carapaz rode a great race. However, somewhere Tom Dumoulin is laughing his as* off listening to Richard complain about losing the Giro because someone was sitting on his wheel all day and refused to work , on the stage up the Finestre no less
Such a poetic victory for Yates that it’s hard to believe it happened!
The names Finestre and Simon Yates have been intertwined since 2018, and not in a good way as far as Yates is concerned.
Now, in the future, the names Finestre and Simon Yates will be forever intertwined, and in the best possible way Yates could imagine.
Talk about re-writing the script!
Except that in 2018 Yates was done before the Finestre.
A case of to win, first you must be prepared to lose.
Carapaz was definitely prepared to lose with his team’s efforts and attacks. The Del Toro standoff meant in the end he lost nothing but gained nothing.
Yates had little to lose, ok a podium place isn’t to be sniffed at, but once he’d bridged; worked out Gee et al. were minimal risk to his podium place; knew he was on a good day; WVA was up ahead, the risk:reward balance slid well into his favour.
Del Toro had everything to lose and he lost, what, 90% of it? Maybe he knew he was on the limit and any more would blow the podium. Maybe it was obstinance. Maybe it was shiny tactics from the team car. I dare say there’ll be some discussion on this. However, at the begining of the tour I dare say he would have bitten your hand off for 2nd place. It’s a question of perspective.
Many thanks to Inrng for the last 3 weeks. I have little time to watch cycling so don’t have a subscription – the 8min TNTsports(good) or Lantern rouge (great, if available) recaps on YouTube have to suffice (I stopped listening to cycling podcasts a while ago and can’t recall why). But Inrng’s blog is public service broadcasting’s Reithian tenents at its best – informing, educational and entertaining, but in a specific niche. Looking forward to catching as much of the Tour as I can on its last UK free-to-air appearance
In the UK Quest HD (part of discovery) have daily highlights of the Giro I imagine they will have highlights of le tour also once the ITV contract expires.
Yes, but once Del Toro loses pink, who cares whether it’s 2nd or 3rd? For god’s sake, ride!
As ever our host has pinpointed the real issue. WvA and the rest of the break should not have been given 10 minutes. A bit less, and he wouldn’t have got over the Finistre ahead of Yates.
The I ride/you ride tantrums are of nothing compared to this error.
Did you know the term “Latin-American” was coined by French diplomacy under Napoleon III to underpin its invasion of Mexico? Would you call Hugo Houle a Latin-American?
I wonder if they gave us Mexican stand-off as well.
Ferdi, I wonder did our paths cross in ‘Latin America’ itself, once upon a time…
AW this is so true.
It was disgraceful to see the maglia rosa not chase to save jersey. Yes he could have been jumped by Carapaz on the last climb if he had pulled through the descent but at least he would still have a chance.
This kind of riding makes me wonder if the high salaries of the young riders has a flipside. Because he rode yesterday like he it didnt even matter to him if he won or not.
Hats off to Yates, Wout and Visma. What a masterpiece
I think it was a young kid who has never ridden for GC before who didn’t know what to do. And the kid was trying to follow orders from the DC in the car. In turn, the DC doesn’t know the exact race situation (if they have TV coverage, it can be a minute behind the action), and can’t see how Del Torro is feeling. Moreover, they had been trying to stop Del Torro from taking too much action in earlier stages.
What a day! I found myself idling in a Mall in Dubai, checking the PCS website while waiting for my taking-too-long wife, so thought I’d nip to the nearby sports bar to see if by some miracle* they could get the Giro on one of their ‘000’s of channels, just as the leaders started Finestre. And – Praise The Lord – they did it, and my wife joined me to listen to me go on about how wonderful the Finestre is. Little did I know that it would be such a memorable day, starting with Yate’s early attacks – when the elastic stretched but didn’t snap – to the lead balooning after the summit. Yate’s emotional interviews, Harper’s win, Van Aert emptying himself for a teammate (again) and Verre suffering hold on to 2nd were added bonuses.
*Its June and I am yet to find out how to legally watch the pro cycling on TV in the UAE. It has disappeared from Europsort and BEIn Sports sadly. I am yet to commit to paying for TNT.
The only circumstances under which Del Toro’s total refusal to collaborate with Carapaz to save his own maglia rosa would have been if it was Adam Yates riding away to the win. Given that wasn’t the case he should have forgot about Carapaz and given it everything from the top of Finestre onwards. That he didn’t is totally incomprehensible.
Sorry, but once again INRNG’s commentary easily outclasses the armchair warriors. IDT was faced with a long climb to high altitude – neither to his supposed benefit. Could he have counter-attacked RC and chased down Yates? The longer the climb lasted the less likely that looked. If he’d gone after Yates (and he was that close that you’ve got to think that if he could have he would have) there was no guarantee that he could hold his wheel even if he got there. The relative climbing speeds certainly suggest he wouldn’t. Instead he rode conservatively and kept hold of second, rather than imploding and finishing third, fourth or worse. It might not be exciting but it is certainly a mature calculation (whoever made it) and extracted the best possible result from the situation. One does wonder whether the UAE DSs are a shade gun-shy, given Pog’s penchant for the dramatic…
RC on the other hand, expecting IDT to pull him to the top of the Finestre is surely delusional. Once Yates launched and was away, he was looking at a choice between second and third. Clearly he preferred third to the risk of helping IDT/UAE to the win. If anyone was sulking, here was the culprit.
RC was right in trying to force IDT to work. And IDT should work with RC when the gap was still 30s or so, since both were defending their places and RC having slight chances of winning. At 1:30, RC is only working to save IDT’s place. I believe IDT simply couldn’t.
RC was also right trying to force IDT to chase in the valley and blow up, and IDT was right to wait for the team.
That’s basically what David McKenzie and Simon Gerrans were saying on live commentary for SBS in Australia, del Toro was riding within his limit to save what he could on the Finestre and couldn’t be stuffed chasing on the valley road because WVA’s MVP ride for Yates meant it was all over by then.
By the time they were riding up the valley, all that del Toro needed to do was follow Carapaz, and it was up to Carapaz to decide whether to attack for second place or just protect third place by keeping an eye on Gee.
He should have rode as hard as he could to the finish. By putting in ‘as he could’ that means within his capabilities, without blowing up. If he does that and still loses the race then thats just one of those things, beaten by the better man on the day.
The alternative, refusing to pull, several times almost coming to a complete stop, losing over 5 minutes, and allowing several much slower groups to catch you can’t in any way be spun to seem a better idea. Also, by criticising Del Toro I am not saying Carapaz is correct. Once Yates was in the lead on GC they should have collaborated.
People are saying ‘oh Del Toro will win the Giro/Tour one day anyway’, but a lot of people thought Bernal and Ullrich were going to dominate cycling for years.
There is a doubt in my mind that Del Toro sees himself as a GT GC specialist. His main assets seem to be his kick and bike handling. He could be thinking more about one day and one week races.
If so, even more reason to not let this chance slip away!
Pure speculation about what he thinks, but I’m pretty sure he’ll find it hard to resist pressure from his team (and resulting ££££) to go for GTs. Hopefully they won’t burn him out too early, but focussing on one week races would seem like a backward step now.
@Richard S, I totally agree with you. It’s one thing to lose while giving it your all; that can be respected. To sit up and literally freewheel as the race goes up the road (or easily catches from behind) is an embarrassment.
Envision a future GT wherein Pog shows del Toro how to do it, faced with a similar situation, e.g., a second place Jonas attacking.
@BCA +1.
Richard S – and another young super talent who took 2nd in the Giro early in his career but whose palmarès doesn’t really, imho, match that early hype and potential, Andy Schleck. (I was admittedly a big Schleck fanboy so my opinions may be a little skewed).
That’s race strategy by AI. I hope it won’t be the kind of strategy we’ll see in the future of cycling. Who cares Del Toro finishes second or third ? Is it so important for him ? The only thing important was to try and win – or make a good battle anyway. Here he lost the Giro and does not go out very well of the story. Maybe that’s just following team’s orders even when they become absurd, and oppose his champion’s ego… I don’t see what he won yesterday.
I can’t for the life of me work out what Gee was trying to do, if he had designs on the podium then once Yates had a decent lead he was realistically racing Carapaz. I also thing IDT and Carapaz were mistaken to spend so long in his wheel, whist it may have been mentally tempting to be sat in the wheel Gee was riding slower than Yates so they were losing ground all the time
Frankly, I think Gee decided he was going to ride at his tempo and not care who was on his wheel, which is completely a legitimate way to climb Finestre especially considering it’s relatively steady grade.
Gee more-or-less said this afterwards. He climbed at his own pace.
One of the most exciting GT stages I’ve seen in 35 years of watching, felt like a privilege to witness it. I would rather have seen Del Toro fight harder to try and win the overall, even if he then ended up in third, but from his perspective he will have been fearing a complete collapse and falling off the podium, so settled for second. He’s so young and will surely improve and win at least one GT in his career.
Sidenote I find all the chat about the Yates twins personality really tedious. Cycling has always been a refuge for the shy, awkward and introverted and the pro peloton is no different, not everyone can be cheerful, slick and media savvy. Simon Yates won the Giro dItalia and his legs did the talking, Chapeau!
I can’t see anything wrong with the personality of the Yates twins. Both are clearly liked in their teams and ex-teams (Jayco seemed so pleased Simon won). G.Thomas made a point of saying how loyal a teammate Adam was, even in a contract year in which Adam needed his own results. And Pogi clearly adores Adam.
IDT is twenty one years old, so he could still have been riding as a ‘junior’ for another two years. He didn’t even start his first grand tour as the designated ‘leader’. Now he is on the podium second step, and probably incidentally, the white jersey. Most riders and most DS would think that was a pretty good result, really.
I think that because of the rise of younger ‘superstars’ like Remco and of course Tadej in his first and second TDF, we are maybe expecting a standard of maturity in judgement which may be harder to achieve than physical prowess.
As for Yates, he’s from Lancashire. Northumbrians say Lancs boys make Yorkshire lads seem frivolous.
Thank you, dear INRG, for all the work that goes into your daily posts, they make my day. Counting down the days to the Dauphine and then the main meal…..
+1
similar to what I was saying above.
this was a very intense situation and we have no idea of how close to the red he was, I think we can go a little lighter on him!
what I find quite interesting is that for a youthful rider you’d expect him to lose his head and attack full gas and go into the red then blow up… but he did the opposite? He was almost too mature and overthought his tactics rather than underthought…
watching his ability to see the silver lining after and be happy was extremely impressive?
I actually think this all bodes well for his future not badly! He’s clearly got a good head on his shoulders and the power, he just made one mistake in the heat of battle, something I’m sure everyone commenting here and online in general would’ve done well before the final climb on the final stage of the Giro at his age!
Thanks inrng for fantastic informative posts.
I really enjoyed the race. Definitely want to try and ride up finestre now.
I haven’t seen it really mentioned in the comments or other write ups but can’t help thinking that Yates and visma did a fantastic job at talking down their chances. Yates above all others understood how hard the climb can be on the last proper racing day. The opportunity for big shifts in GC standings. I wonder how much of this was planned in advance, I’m sure he wouldn’t have lost time deliberately but he always limited any losses whilst looking unable to follow many acceleration. Yates I think commenting that he couldn’t hope to follow carapaz and IDT when they accelerated. Yet his climbing legs were clearly awesome so I think excellent bluffing and when he went he was given so much (too much) leeway. The English commentators on TNT talking up how cool and strategic IDT was in following carapaz when he kicked each time It was being described as a 2 rider race and It was only when Yates was already in the virtual lead on the road that the conversation changed. maybe the other riders were on the limit and certainly their inability or prevarication and reluctance to risk chasing meant the moment was lost particularly when he joined MVP Wout but it felt to me that the chasers had already stopped riding and the gap was ballooning before then.
What a stage and I’m delighted for Yates.
Also very impressed with Gee reminds me of G (Thomas) often as he measured his effort. Good to see Bernal back in the top 10.
This Giro is exactly why I love WVA. The way he impacted this race won’t show up in his palmares, but what a race he had! In an era of superhumans he hasn’t just dominated like some do, but if you look at his 2025 so far it’s absolutely stellar, and he’s just getting started…