UAE's Giro collapse under fire again after Del Toro's recent revelations: "You can’t fail to remind a young Grand Tour leader about a race-deciding tactical threat"
Cycling
Chris Horner has doubled down on his criticism of UAE Team Emirates - XRG’s Stage 20 collapse at the 2025 Giro d’Italia earlier this year — now fuelled further by Isaac Del Toro’s own candid comments on the communication breakdown that cost him the Maglia Rosa on the Colle delle Finestre.
Reacting to these new revelations on his YouTube channel, Horner said Del Toro’s latest interview finally laid bare the decisive tactical error.
Horner anchored his analysis on a now-infamous line from team director Fabio Baldato: “Fabio Baldato says, ‘Well, I told him one time going up to climb,’” referring to the presence of the ever-dangerous Wout van Aert up the road to assist the counter-attacking Simon Yates on the Finestre.
The disbelief in Horner’s voice was unmistakable. Horner argued that such minimal communication was indefensible under the pressure of a Grand Tour summit finish: “He should have been reminded and reminded and reminded and reminded again before the climb even started.”
According to Horner, this was the precise moment where UAE’s Giro bid began to crumble.
EF detonate the Finestre — Del Toro is isolated in pink
As the Finestre began, EF Education-EasyPost shattered the front of the race to launch Richard Carapaz. Horner detailed the domino effect: “Mikkel Honore blew it all up. Brandon McNulty went out the back. Rafal Majka went out the back. Adam Yates went out the back,” Horner recalls.
Suddenly, Del Toro — just 21, in only his second Grand Tour — was alone. Yet Horner emphasised that Del Toro did everything right in the moment. “Isaac Del Toro does an amazing job to come right back up to Richard Carapaz.”
And he was composed doing it, as Horner notes: “At one moment, you catch him on the video where he's actually relaxed and sitting up and wiping off his hands as he knows he's got some good form.”
For Horner, those images mattered: Del Toro had the legs — and the calm — to defend pink. “He's racing intelligently.”
“He has still not been told” — and the race flips
The turning point, Horner believes, came not from an attack but from silence. While Del Toro was glued to Carapaz, Simon Yates surged forward, in what would ultimately become a Giro d'Italia winning attack. “Simon Yates bridges across… he has still not been told that Wout Van Aert's up the road.”
Only when it was far too late did the crucial call arrive: “The gap is up to 55 seconds before he hears in his race radio the one time that Fabio Baldato, the director sportif says, ‘Don’t forget Wout Van Aert’s up the road,’” Horner explains in disbelief.
In Horner’s eyes, the result was inevitable from that moment. “If he gets to Wout Van Aert's back wheel… nobody’s catching Wout Van Aert.”
Del Toro confirms the radio delay: “They should’ve told me…”
Del Toro’s own reflections only underline Horner’s analysis. As he explained in his interview with GCN:
“When the radio told me Yates was up the road — and that Van Aert was too — Simon already had 55 seconds. They should’ve told me about Van Aert when he had ten seconds, and I’d have said: let’s attack, let’s try,” he recalled.
“The strongest rider… never even tried to defend the jersey”
Horner’s most scathing verdict was saved for the tactical breakdown itself: “You almost never see the strongest rider in the race of a grand tour lose because he never even tried to defend the jersey.”
In his view, Del Toro didn’t lose the Giro — the UAE team car lost it for him: “The director sportif failed multiple times,” the former Vuelta a Espana winner concludes.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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