"Sometimes I don't understand it, but in Mexico they are crazy about me" - Isaac del Toro on being the ray of hope for Mexican cycling
Cycling
Isaac del Toro is one of the biggest climbing talents in the professional talent. The charismatic Mexican sky-rocketed after his unexpected 2023 Tour de l'Avenir triumph to then win a Tour Down Under stage in early 2024 and finish 4th overall at Tirreno-Adriatico. Great things were expected from the 21-year-old's Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta but despite his best efforts, Del Toro's big moments are yet to come.
The goals for 2025 are not small since UAE Team Emirates - XRG will send Del Toro to the Giro d'Italia in 2025 where he'll form a dangerous trio with proven GC leaders Adam Yates and Juan Ayuso. "The team will definitely give me the space to go for it from day one and if I can go for the GC, I want to be ready. I will also help our leaders, but it's great to feel how much space I have to race freely and enjoy my second Grand Tour," he tells In de Leiderstrui.
In his first race among pros, Del Toro has already shown that he can win. He then backed it up with several other top performances and yet, he knows that there is still so much room for improvement. "My numbers have improved a lot, looking at the Tour de l'Avenir in 2023 (which he famously won, ed.). I was a bit nervous when we went to do tests during our training camp in December, but I am still improving," he affirms himself.
"It's cool that I'm now riding among all these big stars and that I have to beat them. I know that cycling is not a big sport in my country, but I'm proud that everyone who knows the sport respects me for what I do. That means a lot to me, Mexicans who love cycling love me. Sometimes I don't understand that, but in Mexico they are crazy about me."
"I want to improve in everything; in power, in races of five hours, then six hours... Making progress with time, that's all I want. I think in 2023 I've been doing the least hours of anyone in the team. Right now I'm training more hours per week, with the same quality. That's the most important thing and probably the reason I'm getting better."
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- He telling the truth, he is outspoken, like him or not he's brought a lot to cycling.awp04-01-2025
- Nice!awp04-01-2025
- He could potentially win the Giro again, although if Jonas races the Giro he would have to have sickness or a bad crash to let Primoz pass him, but the Tour is out of his sights, he missed his chance in 2020. Too much top competition at the Tour, but he could possibly score a top five but more realistically a top ten at his age.awp04-01-2025
- a hello and selfie is fine, but 19 mins of filmed stalking, seriously?? absolutely ridiculous. no class. training is part of their jobs, leave them be. stop turning them against the fans. effing idiot.BalberdoBonkador04-01-2025
- A very good mental victory for Wout tooRide197404-01-2025
- Correct. Jorgenson is a great rider. He has a big tank and could be a GT winner himself at some point.awp04-01-2025
- Yes, the brothers days of escaping together are gone lol. I do hope Kuss will be back in form this year, he had such a bad year with sickness in '24. I also would love to see Jorgensen have a great year as well. For such a big guy he might be the most underrated rider on that team, if any of them are underrated.awp04-01-2025
- Well, as far as I know, they’re also not being treated like criminals but they need to accept that for a whole bunch of people they are just as bad as drug users or dealers, tax cheats and frauds. We are talking of people who deliberately used products knowing they could get punished and banned within their activity. It’s the equivalent of drugs in society and in that sense they get away pretty lightly when you consider the consequences of that, without even considering places where that gets you life or maybe even death. Cycling has come to the point where NO-ONE can claim not to know what might happen if you dope so if you still decide to take that risk you deserve the consequences, and it shows you must be desperate and cycling for the wrong reasons.Mistermaumau04-01-2025
- The check is in the mail....northcarolinaeric04-01-2025
- Considering his schedule and the fact he seemed to feel ok initially, I could imagine they didn’t rush it but probably now they have. I mean, even though he half impaled himself on the rod, he rode on to win in typical Mathieu style. Like he said, the pain got worse over the days so initially he probably thought nothing of it.Mistermaumau04-01-2025