"I've never seen a maglia rosa wearer give up a Giro like that" - Richard Carapaz still outraged by Isaac del Toro
Cycling
Richard Carapaz looked like the strongest man in the final week of the Giro d'Italia 2025. However, his lack of understanding with Isaac del Toro meant that he finished third in the final overall classification. Simon Yates took advantage of the shenanigans of the two Latin Americans and stole the maglia rosa in broad daylight.
Some time has passed, but the Ecuadorian winner of Giro 2019 is still visibly annoyed: "I'm not angry, but it's still hard for me to understand what happened. It was a strange situation," he tells Marca.
"I don't know, maybe you, who have seen a lot of races, can tell me if you've ever seen a maglia rosa wearer give up a Giro like that. Everyone plays with what they have, and they played their cards that way. That third place doesn't make much difference to me. I prefer to stay with the positive: to have fought again in a Grand Tour."
He still struggles to wrap his head around Del Toro's approach to the final day: "I'm still not clear on what happened, whether it was a decision by the UAE car or something Isaac decided on his own."
Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz finished 2nd and 3rd in the Giro d'Italia 2025
"I went back over the stage, and our plan as a team was to leave him without teammates from the start of the climb, to force a one-on-one. We succeeded. But then Yates came from behind, I plugged the gap, closed the gap again... And at a certain point I thought I couldn't take all the responsibility," Carapaz thinks back to the fateful Finestre.
"So I let him take the lead for a moment, but instead of doing that, he slowed down with me. It got to be uncomfortable. I even purposely stopped on purpose to get him to pass, but he didn't, he stayed with me holding back. And I wondered what was going on. We decided to give him a bit of a cushion to put pressure on him, but the gap went over two minutes, so I had to speed up again to try to get Del Toro to blow up or something."
Finally, Carapaz brought Del Toro back into a position where he could win the Giro. The two of them only needed to cooperate - but that didn't happen: "In the last four kilometers I climbed very hard, we managed to cut about 40 seconds, we crowned at 1:20. He said he wanted to wait for his team, but they were more than three minutes behind."
"I left everything ready for him, and when he wanted to collaborate it was too late. He told me: 'now we're going together', but by then the other one already had a five-minute lead and a very important teammate ahead of him. I told him it was too late."
"He became obsessed with me and I don't fully understand that. It was a strange strategy. A leader can't act like that, but well, everyone plays their own game. If it had gone wrong, I would have burst in Finestre, but it didn't happen. I put it on a plate. He only had to take care of the descent and the valley. He told me to collaborate when it was already useless: the other one had already left and he had Wout waiting for him up ahead."
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Ondrej ZhasilCycling Journalist
Ondřej Zhasil is a cycling journalist at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2023. He is based in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and covers professional cycling across the main UCI competitions, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España. A key focus of his work is startlist analysis and pre-race coverage, where he examines team selections, rider line-ups, and tactical scenarios ahead of major events.
Alongside WorldTour coverage, Ondřej has developed specific expertise in junior cycling and in racing across East Asia, including competitions in China and Japan. He also maintains a broad working knowledge of other disciplines and levels, including cyclocross, while continuing to expand his understanding of mountain bike racing.
Ondřej holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics, which supports his analytical, data-driven approach to performance and race analysis. In his reporting, he regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical context. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available.
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