Wout van Aert, Isaac del Toro and Simon Yates: it was a memorable day for all three of them during the final mountain stage of the Giro earlier this year. Del Toro lost the overall victory to Yates, largely because of Van Aert.
After the Giro, UAE Team Emirates–XRG shrugged their shoulders about that unlikely turn of events, but now Del Toro is joining GCN in Spanish back to the mistakes that were made on this day. Del Toro thinks that he let Simon Yates drive away due to lack of experience and therefore underestimated the British leader of Visma-Lease a Bike.
Yet Del Toro also points the finger at the team management. “When they told me on the radio that in addition to Yates, Van Aert was also at the front, Simon already had 55 seconds. That was a shock to me.” His message to the team was the following: “You should have told me about Van Aert when he had 10 seconds, then I would have said: let’s attack”.
UAE did not want to let Del Toro go over the limit
Del Toro also tries to think about the reasoning that was followed in the team car at that moment. “I think from the car they didn’t want me to go over the limit and fall back to fifth or sixth place in the rankings. Now we only lost one position, but it was the small mistakes that cost us dearly.”
Del Toro indeed stayed in the wheel of Carapaz and thus secured second place in the final standings. In retrospect, the Mexican should always have won the Giro that day. “I made a tactical error, forgetting details, for example Van Aert.” With the help of Van Aert, Yates was even able to build a large lead.
Day to remember for Visma-Lease a Bike
Thanks to this successful coup by Visma-Lease a Bike, Yates won the Giro with a bonus of almost four minutes over Del Toro. Carapaz had to settle for third place at 4’43” from Yates. It is a day that they will not soon forget at Visma.
