"Not unreasonable to compare him with Pogacar - he can realistically target almost any type of race": High praise for Isaac del Toro after breakthrough 2025 campaign

Isaac del Toro has long been tipped as one of cycling’s next great all-rounders — but after a 2025 season featuring 16 victories, a Giro d’Italia podium, and a top-three finish in the UCI world rankings, even seasoned observers are beginning to run out of superlatives.

According to TV 2 Sport’s cycling analyst Emil Axelgaard, the 21-year-old Mexican’s meteoric rise has been so complete that comparisons with Tadej Pogacar are no longer far-fetched.

“It’s not unreasonable to compare him with Pogacar,” Axelgaard said in analysis for TV 2 Sport. “Of course, he’s not yet at the Slovenian’s level, but he has the same extraordinary versatility. There’s nothing he can’t do. He’s explosive, he can sprint, he can handle long climbs — and when he rode his first proper time trial at the 2024 Volta ao Algarve, he surprised everyone by finishing fourth, ahead of riders such as Filippo Ganna.”

Axelgaard believes del Toro’s range makes him unique among the sport’s emerging generation. With a background in cyclocross, the young UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider already possesses the technical control and explosiveness to compete in nearly every terrain.

“That means he can realistically target almost any type of race,” Axelgaard explained. “Right now, it’s perhaps hard to see him focusing on the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix — though Flanders might not be entirely out of reach — but he’s built for hilly one-day races, and clearly he can also compete in both Grand Tours and week-long stage races. In fact, he’s won every type of race like that this year, apart from the Grand Tours, where he had to ‘settle’ for second place at the Giro.”

Del Toro’s 2025 campaign has been a showcase of that breadth: victories at the Giro della Toscana, Trofeo Matteotti and Giro del Veneto complemented his standout Grand Tour performance, where he wore the maglia rosa for 10 stages and claimed a mountain-top win in Bormio.

Even with such results, Axelgaard suggests the Mexican still has two major areas to refine.

“His time trialling is good, but he’s not yet at the level of Pogacar, Vingegaard or Evenepoel,” he noted. “We also saw at the Giro that he still struggles on the really big mountain days with multiple long climbs — something that was probably confirmed again at Il Lombardia. Those are two key areas for improvement that will largely determine how great a Grand Tour rider he becomes.”

Yet after an astonishing first full season in the WorldTour, Axelgaard believes any remaining gaps are likely to close quickly — and that the sport’s new Mexican star is only just getting started. “Given his second place at the Giro this year, there’s little reason to doubt that he’ll soon close those gaps.”