DISCUSSION Giro d'Italia Stage 19 | Who is the main favourite to win the Giro, Del Toro or Carapaz? Was the stage disappointing?

Stage 19 of the Giro d’Italia was one of the queen stages of this edition, featuring 166km and 5 monster climbs that pushed every rider to the limit.

The break never enjoyed a bigger gap than 3 minutes, as there was always a team in peloton willing to set a hard pace to create fatigue. Education First, Israel, Visma and Bora took turns to pull in order to help their respective GC leaders, making things hard for the break.

However, one man managed to prevail in front. Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) held off the peloton’s charge and claimed an impressive and well-deserved victory, his second professional win so far after winning the final stage of the Tour of the Alps one month ago.

Although the route promised a lot of action, GC riders didn’t launch any attack until the last 10km. It was Richard Carapaz who tried his luck, with a powerful attack that only Isaac del Toro could follow. They arrived together at the finish line, gaining 24 seconds on the rest of the GC guys.

Tomorrow we will have the last round, with the fearsome Colle delle Finestre as the final judge. Isaac del Toro remains firmly in first and showed no weakness today, in part thanks to the lack of attacks by his opponents. Carapaz and him will be the two main favourites to win the unpredictable Giro 2025.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

An interesting stage, but with an anti-climatic finale I'd say. I say this not because teams did not try, but because UAE's numerical superiority was very evident, and in climbs like this it did make a difference, as the final ones were not steep and were quite wide - where it's hard to make a difference.

Carapaz did attack in the final one but here it was clear that Del Toro would be able to respond, it was a short and explosive climb right at his style.

EF paced, Israel paced, Visma paced, BORA paced. They did what they could to set up an attack, but when the time came there was fear over UAE's depth and ability to bring back attacks, together with Isaac del Toro's availability.

The Mexican ticked off another box, and only has one test remaining - which is not the brightest statement, taking to consideration Finestre is the toughest climb in the race.

But on these 2 mountain stages he bounced back in the best way he could've hoped for, distancing Yates and Gee, and only having Carapaz now as a real rival for the win under normal circumstances, which means he only needs to focus on him.

But in the Finestre team won't matter, only the legs will do, and he's got to put in the ride of his life to keep the pink jersey on his shoulders.

This was a stage that could be described as a queen stage in any other Grand Tour, but I feel like due to the fact we have a terrifying stage tomorrow everyone held their cards up close today.

Until Carapaz decided to go for it under 10k to go, but I think even Carapaz was aware that attack was not going to discard Del Toro, so I think it was more to get rid of the likes of Yates and Gee.

Lots of strategy with nearly all teams placing men on the break and the GC teams using the men on the break for later support of their leaders, so tactically the stage was quite interesting.

But overall I feel like it failed to live up to the hype it had previously. On the other hand, it also increases interest to see tomorrow's stage which becomes even more decisive now.

Stage 19 of the Giro d'Italia has silenced all those who say that cycling is more fun without Tadej Pogacar. In a stage where many GC favourites should have attacked, spectators were treated to a very timid group, more afraid of the Colle delle Finestre than brave enough to try to break up the race on the Col de Joux.

Fortunately, Richard Carapaz, with his attack 6 km from the finish line, prevented the stage from being completely boring. His attack, matched by Isaac del Toro, meant that the Ecuadorian and Mexican will battle it out for the GC victory in stage 20, eliminating Simon Yates from the fight.

The worst thing is that the Briton said in statements after the stage that he felt good throughout the stage. But he didn't attack once.

Not to mention Derek Gee, who seems content with being 4th in the Giro d'Italia when he probably won't have a better chance to go all out in the future, or Einer Rubio, who believes that only by riding in the slipstream of the rest will he be able to climb positions.

In short, I am very disappointed with the attitude of almost everyone. Who would have imagined that the two bravest cyclists, Del Toro and Carapaz, would be the ones fighting for the final victory in stage 20. Coincidences, as in life, do not exist in cycling.

I don’t understand Simon Yates. Once again his team pulled (for so many kilometres actually) and once again he never tried anything. Nothing at all. He never made an attempt to follow Carapaz after he launched his attack and just stayed in the group following Tiberi’s pace.

The funniest part came after the stage, when Yates surprisingly said in an interview that the original plan was “completely different than what they did today”, while the team director claimed that the original plan had been perfectly executed. How is that possible?

Either one of them is lying or there has been huge miscommunication among Yates and the team. Whatever it may be, they'd better fix those communication issues before tomorrow, unless they want to lose the podium.

Simon Yates also said that he felt good today and had good legs…so I keep asking myself, why didn’t he attack? Even if the team tactics he had in mind were not the ones his teammates implemented, why didn’t he try anything?

It was the perfect opportunity to test Del Toro's shape, he is young and should "supposedly" struggle more than an experienced rider like Simon Yates during the mountain stages in the final week. But there was nothing of that, no ambition whatsoever.

The same could be said about the rest of the GC riders, only Giulio Pellizzari timidly tried to break UAE’s control, but he was immediately denied by a fantastic Rafal Majka. Nobody else dared to try, they might be too scared about Finestre tomorrow, but leaving everything to the last moment is most likely not going to help them to achieve anything too significant.

In the case of Derek Gee for instance, he is less than 2:30 behind del Toro, so he has a great shot at winning a Grand Tour for the first time in his career. But he never tried anything despite his team working for him, does he think his best chance is to go all-in tomorrow to move up in the GC? Does he believe he can win the Giro doing that?

Tomorrow’s stage has made the riders too afraid of wasting too much energy today, and it is really a pity. I believed del Toro would lose the Maglia Rosa today, but after the impressive performance he put once again and how easy he answered to Carapaz’s attack, I am starting to believe he can actually win this Giro.

It will be between him and Carapaz, I don’t see anyone else able to defeat any of them. And honestly, I am very happy with that, they have been the two bravest riders during the whole race and both deserve the win.

Today, I took a nice nap in front of the TV. What seemed like an exciting stage on paper, turned out to be another friendly commute for everyone present. Maybe someone should tell the GC riders that Giro ends in two days?

Nicolas Prodhomme is a deserved winner, but he should probably send a gift card to Gee, Caruso, Yates & co. for sleeping in on what seemed like a perfect day to shake up the standings.

Two days ago, we were scratching our heads what was Carapaz trying to accomplish by attacking on Mortirolo. Today he attacks on a 5% slope with Del Toro comfortably on his wheel.

Is everyone so afraid of Finestre? Then I hope it will become a legendary spectacle because nothing less will save this Giro from being an utter disappointment.

Do I think Del Toro will wear pink in Rome? I still refuse to believe it, but I also thought Carapaz would at the very least force him out of his comfort zone today - which didn't happen and he even lost two more seconds.