“It made me so angry I turned off the TV – so much stupidity!”: Tom Dumoulin still can’t believe how Isaac del Toro lost the Giro d’Italia “in the dumbest possible way”

Tom Dumoulin has delivered one of the bluntest verdicts yet on Isaac del Toro’s dramatic collapse on the Colle delle Finestre — the day the pink jersey slipped from the young Mexican’s shoulders and the 2025 Giro d’Italia turned on its head.

Speaking during De Laatste Etappe at the Wielergala, in quotes collected by Wielerflits, the 2017 Giro winner didn’t sugar-coat a single word.

According to Dumoulin, watching Stage 20 unfold was so maddening he simply switched his television off.

“I really did switch it off,” he said. “I just couldn’t understand that del Toro and UAE Emirates - XRG were throwing away that Giro win in the dumbest possible way. Del Toro could easily have won! Yes, Yates had a super day and maybe he’d still have gone on the Finestre, but of course never with that kind of gap.”

That gap — almost four minutes by Sestriere — was the product of one of the most ruthless tactical ambushes cycling has seen in years. Del Toro began the day with 43 seconds on Richard Carapaz and 1:21 on Simon Yates, having led the Giro since Stage 9. But on the gravel slopes of the Finestre, EF detonated the climb, UAE hesitated, Yates attacked, and Wout van Aert — waiting up the road from the early break — became the perfect slingshot. By the time the race reached the summit, del Toro’s dream Giro was already slipping away.

And Dumoulin, watching at home, couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “It’s simply because del Toro… I don’t know what he was doing. To this day I still don’t get it. It actually made me angry!” he laughed. “So I turned off the TV. Really, I did.”

His reaction echoed much of the post-Giro analysis. Del Toro himself later admitted he was shocked by the lack of information coming from the team car during the decisive moments.

“When the radio told me Yates was up the road — and that Van Aert was too — Simon already had 55 seconds,” del Toro said after the race. “They should’ve told me about Van Aert when he had ten seconds. I’d have said: let’s attack, let’s try.”

Instead, del Toro and Carapaz repeatedly looked at each other, hesitated, and let the race drift away. Visma’s perfectly-timed Yates-and-Van-Aert combination became the defining move of the Giro — and the final blow to del Toro’s fairytale debut.

Despite the frustration, Dumoulin is anything but dismissive of the Mexican talent. “So much stupidity — I didn’t need to see it,” he joked. “But I think del Toro is a fantastic rider, truly amazing. I hope he makes life difficult for Tadej Pogacar in the coming years, maybe even with another team. That would be fantastic.”

Yet he also warned that opportunities like this may not come again. “Del Toro will probably hit himself on the head when he realises that might have been his chance. You never know. I thought I’d get more opportunities to wear yellow at the Tour de France — but I can tell you, it never happened. Opportunities don’t always come back.”

The Finestre debacle still stings for del Toro — and clearly, for Dumoulin too. But if anything, both agree on one thing: that day may have cost him a Giro, but it might also be the making of him.