"Del Toro raced like old Remco today": Mexican champion benefits from patience while Olympic champion crumbles in heat

The third stage of UAE Tour led to a drastic shake-up of the general classifcation. The pre-stage leader and favourite Remco Evenepoel lost good two minutes as well as his position in GC while Isaac del Toro fought the steep gradients formidably to finish within a hand's reach of the winner Antonio Tiberi who moves up to the red jersey at the halfway point of the race.

The main obstacle of Wednesday's stage has been the brand new Jebel Mobrah ascent with sections up to 17% steep. And while Evenepoel appeared strong at the beginning, the Belgian quickly found his limit and backed out of the battle while Del Toro who chose a more steady pace, eventually crawled his way back to a runner-up result.

"Remco raced aggressively going over his limit (which is the opposite how he has raced in the past) covering all the attacks," former professional Tom Danielson noticed an unusual pattern in Evenepoel's racing tactics in today's stage during his X analysis of the Jebel Mobrah stage.

"I think, for whatever reason, he ran too low on the glycogen yesterday in the TT (maybe trying to not gain weight) and did not have enough in his muscles today. You could see he was fine, then suddenly not fine, then cramping. When you are depleted you also lose control of your core body temp. I think this is what happened which led to his body shutting down and even cramping. Very common," he pointed out.

What is striking to Danielson is the comparison of the two men's approaches to today's final obstacle. While Evenepoel blew up under his own pace, Del Toro raced a little bit like his teammate Joao Almeida, simply maintaining his pace. Danielson notes that's the strategy Remco himself would've used in the past.

"Del Toro ironically raced like old Remco simply staying on his zones and pace without even trying to cover moves. Today he reminded me of vintage Ryder Hesjedal super relaxed off the back, then in the race, then attacking and dropping everyone. I think he did this as he clearly is using this race for training and carefully developing his threshold zones. There is definitely a storm brewing here," Danielson sounds excited.

"The final of the climb, I think, exposed an area I believe is currently a limiter for Del Toro. He clearly has a level over the rest in overall force or torque. But over the longer durations like 12 mins to 30 mins this high torque is harder for his body to sustain and he has to reduce it to a level that is not above the best riders."

Danielson proposes a solution: "I think to translate his strength into better climbing and TTing he must bring a higher cadence in. This would allow him to use his existing threshold zones torque, maybe even less, and be faster than the others with more power. I think this is just a habit and style he has, but more work here will put him above the rest on the longer efforts like climbs and TT’s."

He continues: "You could see how Tiberi ran a much higher cadence and in the end was able to go the same speed once Del Toro’s big dig was over. Showing at the lower threshold zones Del Toro is not at a level above the rest… right now," Danielson concludes.