Is Tadej Pogacar becoming a little nervous after yet another victory and Del Toro's spectacular climbing record?
CyclingThursday, 11 September 2025 at 08:52
Isaac Del Toro has been virtually unbeatable in recent months. The 21-year-old Mexican seemed to be quietly discovering himself as a rider in the Giro d'Italia, major WorldTour races, and so on this season. However, since winning Milan-Turin and finishing unexpectedly second in the Giro, everything has changed. Under that pressure, Del Toro seems to have only performed better.
As we wrote after his victory in last Sunday's GP Industria & Artigianato, since Del Toro returned after the Giro, things have been looking up. He won three stages and the overall classification in the Tour of Austria, triumphed in the Clàssica Terres de l'Ebre, and the Circuito de Getxo. After the overall classification in the Tour of Burgos and his victory on Sunday, he now also added the Giro della Toscana to his list of achievements.
Wednesday's victory was as impressive as almost all of his victories in 2025. Del Toro simply rode away from the rest, and no one could follow. He didn't even need to use his now well-known punch. It was time to wave to the Italian crowd in what was a bit of a home race, as Del Toro lives in San Marino.
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Del Toro keeps winning on his way to the World Championships
We should mention that the races Del Toro did after the Giro were almost all second-tier events. Only the Clasica San Sebastián was WorldTour status, and there he lost to Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek). However, on his way to the World Championships, where he has already stated his intention to challenge UAE teammate Tadej Pogacar in Rwanda, there is clearly a surplus of talent in this peloton.
That was also the case on Wednesday. UAE Team Emirates-XRG controlled the race once again, and Del Toro was then able to break away on Monte Serra. “I went there to test my legs, and those of the others. When I saw that I had a gap, I focused on my rhythm towards the finish line. It was a very tough day, but the team kept me calm so that I was ready for the final.”
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Cycling fanatic ammattipyöräily shared on X that Del Toro had good reason to break away from the rest on Monte Serra. He broke the climbing record, set in 2023 by teammate Pavel Sivakov at 17:16, by no less than 37 seconds! "Winning here in front of the enthusiastic crowd in Tuscany is very special and motivates me for the next races."
The competition in the Coppa Sabatini (Thursday) and Trofeo Matteotti (Sunday) has been warned.
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Latest Comments
- Roger Vlaeminck says Mads is not a good rider? Where is the headline saying you don't even have to be a good rider to win the World Road Championship says Roger Vlaeminck, who never won it!!? Perhaps his aging mind needs to think about what the heck he's saying.packfiller7103-09-2025
- Wow, there is so much criticism of the UAE XRG riders. Why so much criticism is being leveled solely at the riders is baffling. The UAE XRG management deserves a good amount of the criticism aimed at the team, as a whole. They have not managed the talent they have at all. They failed miserably to properly handle young Isaac del Toro on that penultimate day of the Giro. And they have not handled Juan Ayuso well either. If they didn't have Tadej Pogacar in their roster, we might not be talking about them as winners, at all. So many think that Ayuso has shown that he is not a "team" player at all. Does anybody think that he might be thinking about his own future at this point? That he might want to feel like the team has his back, when they load the pressure onto him? And Joao is not a team leader. That burden might be laid on him by the management, but they need to properly support that assignment, not make it a contentious situation, within the team. And then how management has conducted themselves throughout this parting of ways between themselves and Ayuso has been totally indiscreet. And yet people want to pile onto Ayuso when he tells the truth about the manner that this is all soap opera is developing. He wants out. He shouldn't be getting so much negative criticism for that. It's a situation that has soured. Yes he has a contract, but he is not the first, nor will he be the last that wants to get out of a relationship that just isn't working anymore. And DeCauwer seems to have very vague reasons for criticizing Almeida. He does realize that Jonas is the second best Grand Tour rider of this current generation, so it should be no shame that Joao is behind him in the standings. Riders are giving their all in an extremely difficult sport that stretches them, often beyond their limits. Now many are wanting to send them to Behavioral School as well? The criticism ought to mellow out, or it ought to simply be ignored, as nothing more than blah, blah, blah, not worth the headlines it gets
reemmo002-09-2025 - In 5yrs, Pogi will be a top Twitch streamer living on baked goods while Urska is still racing.Veganpotter11-08-2025
- All they learned is that at the end of a 3 week race, Wout can beat him on a slightly bumpy stage. Obviously, this is very much thanks to Wout not racing for GC every day. This doesn't teach them a thing for Jonas beating Pogi. Not saying Jonas will never beat him again. But this absolutely won't have anything to do with it if he does beat him.Veganpotter28-07-2025
- Well, he eventually Pogacar pays the price for his insane spring campaign which was really crazyRosenkohl196125-07-2025
- Maybe I was a bit disrespectful to Heiden. What he did was unique and exceptional but he wasn't the only one who combined those distances, nowadays it is just not possible and nobody competes in both distances. The same is true for cycling with for example the combination of Roubaix and de Tour de France. In Merckx era there were more riders who managed a top10 in both races than currently.Joostmehrtens19-06-2025
- Two old men shouting at pigeons in the park…JonS16-06-2025
- Out of touch old men hankering after their youth through rose tinted spectacles, their arrogance almost outshines their irrelevance. Turn the volume down, this modern stuff just isn't music like we used to sing...johnny20whales16-06-2025
- In talking speed skating, the days when Heiden did that, nobody else did that. And Eddy couldn't do the equivalent of the bike. His 200 on the velodrome was good, but not world competitive for gold. Heiden was in his own world on the ice, moreso than Eddy if we pretend Eric didn't have a very short career on the ice.Veganpotter16-06-2025
- They wouldn't have dropped HIM so easily.... the GOAT. They would have dropped the rest from that era easily thoughVeganpotter16-06-2025
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