Two weeks after the Giro, Carapaz reflects on one particular stage: "Del Toro became obsessed with me"

"Now that I can look back on everything that happened with a clear head, I am delighted," he told Radio Marca. "I gave everything I had; I did everything I could. It was a beautiful, hard-fought Giro. We got the race going. In the end, things got out of hand. It's very satisfying for me to return to the podium after almost four years. We're still alive here and have everything we need to fight. I'll take that. This year, we could have fought until the end."

Satisfaction with his own performance prevails among the 2019 winner. "But I still can't comprehend what happened," he said, referring to the final mountain stage. "I don't know if you, who have seen so much cycling, have ever seen a pink jersey slip away like that in the Giro. Everyone played their cards, and they played theirs. That was the result. That third place doesn't change much for me. I'm left with the satisfaction of having fought for another Grand Tour."

The Ecuadorian from EF Education: EasyPost insists that pink jersey wearer Del Toro made the mistakes, not him. “I don't fully understand what happened, whether in the UAE car or Isaac's head. I've analyzed the stage again, and our mission as a team was to isolate him from below so we could have a one-on-one battle on the climb. We did that well. But then Yates came from behind..."

The British rider from Visma | Lease a Bike rode away on the Colle delle Finestre, and Carapaz and Del Toro looked at each other. That lasted a long time, a very long time. Carapaz took the lead for a moment but then left the work to the Mexican. "There was a moment when I thought it wasn't entirely my responsibility. I let him do the work for a moment, but he slowed down in front of me." That's how the eventual Giro winner's lead grew again.

“There was a moment that was almost embarrassing,” the climber continues. "There was a moment when I deliberately slowed down so he could pass me, but he didn't want to and slowed down in front of me. And I said, 'What's going on? We gave him some time to respond. But the lead dropped to more than two minutes, and I had to speed up again after deciding to see if Del Toro would explode."

That didn't happen. Yates had a two-minute lead at the top and was virtually in pink. Carapaz still wanted to go full throttle in pursuit, but Del Toro decided not to cooperate. "On the descent, he braked and said he wanted to wait for his team, but they were more than three minutes behind. I explained everything to him, and it was too late when he wanted to help. By the time his team arrived, it was too late." He said, "Now we're going together,’ but Yates already had a five-minute lead and an important teammate ahead of him," referring to Wout van Aert, who extended Yates' lead from two to five minutes.

Even though Carapaz says he's not too bothered about it, his words reveal some disappointment but also some blame towards Del Toro. "He became obsessed with me, and I didn't understand it. It was a strange tactic. A leader shouldn't react like that; everyone plays their own cards. I handed it to him on a silver platter. All he had to do was the descent and then the next valley." Have the two spoken since? "I wanted to talk to him because I didn't understand what had happened, but he ignored me."