At the start of this Giro d’Italia, the name Isaac del Toro was little-known beyond cycling aficionados. Fast forward to the business end of the crucial final week, and Del Toro is among the favourites to win the race, having sported the leader’s pink jersey for eight days and picking up his first Grand Tour stage win on stage 17.
After a topsy-turvy Giro in which the pre-race favourite Primoz Roglic struggled and ultimately crashed out, a rider 14 years his junior, in only his second full year as a professional, raised far from the sport’s hinterlands of northern Europe, has assumed the mantle of leading one of the sport’s three biggest races.
The prodigiously talented 21-year-old grew up in Ensenada, a small town a two-hour drive from San Diego, in the Mexican state of Baja California. He told Volata, “My dad was a cyclist and my mum wanted my brother and me to be sportsmen,” and to that end, the young Del Toro became obsessed with cycling.
His abilities as a climber were honed at altitude, on some of Mexico’s toughest climbs, including the 4,631m Nevado de Toluca. Like many riders, he drilled relentlessly to turn his weaknesses into strengths, focusing on sprint training to make up for his lack of natural punch.
Hours spent mountain biking and doing cyclo-cross as a teenager also refined his bike handling skills and positioning, abilities which have served him well during this Giro as he has avoided the crashes that have brought down some of his rivals.
He joined the Mexican AR Monex team in his late teens and was meant to spend 2020 racing in Europe, but the Covid-19 pandemic put paid to that. But he worked his way up through lower-level races before he announced his arrival onto the world stage by winning the Tour de l’Avenir in 2023.
A stage race that has long been seen as an early indicator of Grand Tour success, the ‘Tour of the Future’ is held on terrain that frequently features in the Tour de France, and whose previous winners include Greg LeMond, Nairo Quintana, Egan Bernal and – who else – Tadej Pogacar.
Del Toro won a stage on one of France’s most notorious and difficult climbs, the Col de la Loze – the scene of Pogacar’s collapse in the 2023 Tour, and his infamous radio message of “I’m gone, I’m dead” to his team.
The Mexican had none of the same misfortune, accelerating away from race leader Matthew Riccitello on its slopes, before later snatching the overall win away from the American on the final stage.
His brilliant performance earned him the attention of UAE Team Emirates-XRG and a WorldTour contract at just 20. His first year as a neo-pro began with a podium in the Down Under Classic before a stage win in the Tour Down Under – his debut stage race as a professional – and three days in the lead before finishing third overall. He was fourth overall at Tirreno-Adriatico in 2024 and this March he won Milano-Torino, the oldest classic in the calendar, beating Ben Tulett and Tobias Halland Johannessen – another former Tour de l’Avenir winner – in a three-up sprint.
His UAE contract now runs until 2029; the team know they have a gem on their hands. Del Toro said at the time, “Despite having victories, I am someone who still has a lot to learn. I decided on UAE Team Emirates because of the way they see things, because they offered me the focus I needed, because of everything they wanted to give me.”
As well as the general classification at the Tour de l’Avenir, he topped the mountains, points and best young rider classifications. A Mexican rider had never won the race before. But Del Toro is part of a rich tradition of Latin and South American climbers, the most successful being the Colombian pair of Quintana and Bernal, as well as the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz.
All three have won Grand Tours and blazed a trail in the sport. Carapaz, one of Del Toro’s biggest rivals to take the title in Rome, was the first Ecuadorian to win the Giro, in 2019, and the first cyclist from his country to win a gold medal at the Olympics with road race glory in 2021. Bernal, winner of the Tour de France in 2019, was the first-ever Latin American rider to win cycling’s most prestigious race.
2014 Giro winner Quintana, now a veteran at 35, was one of the riders Del Toro grew up watching, alongside Chris Froome. Bernal was another inspiration to the youngster as he built his own cycling career. The Mexican was in rehab for a fractured femur at the same time as Bernal was rehabbing from his life-threatening crash in 2022, and has made no secret of his admiration for him. Del Toro came back from that injury to enjoy his breakout season in 2023; Bernal is now nearing the end of his own long road to recovery.
The Colombian national champion said earlier in this race that Del Toro, then on his first day in pink, could win it. “I like him a lot as a rider – he is very intelligent, he moves very well, he is always ahead,” the two-time Grand Tour winner said. “For me, he is one of the best riders there is. Clearly, he can win the race, yes.”
When told of this, Del Toro, still in awe of taking the maglia rosa, was visibly starstruck: “Dreaming is for free… I cannot believe Bernal said it.”
But even if Del Toro does not hold onto his lead, the Colombian was right to take note of the youngster. He is now one of the youngest Giro stage winners, as well as the youngest rider to wear pink, this century. He is only the third Mexican to win a Grand Tour stage. If he holds on until Rome, he will be the first to win a Grand Tour.
Inevitable comparisons have been made to his team leader and modern cycling’s most brilliant talent, Pogacar. Both riders won the Tour de l’Avenir before making their stage race debuts as professionals at age 20 at the Tour Down Under.
The 21-year-old is softly spoken in interviews and press conferences and appears quite a shy character. But on the bike, he has some of Pogacar’s bravado and utter self-confidence, the same attacking flair and aggressive racing style. He celebrated his wins at Milano-Torino and his Giro victory on stage 17 with a theatrical bow – a celebration that echoed the Slovenian’s rampage to the Tour de France title last year.
Until this month, Del Toro had been unproven in GC racing at Grand Tours. He finished 36th overall in his debut Grand Tour, last year’s Vuelta a Espana, but was not targeting the maillot rojo.
Regardless of whether he wins this race or not, he has marked himself as one to watch for the future: a born racer, a brilliant climber, and an heir to a storied tradition of Latin and South American cycling.
Forbes reported that before his star turn in Italy, he said, “I like how [Jonas] Vingegaard races. I like Pogacar’s aggression. I like [Mathieu] Van der Poel’s [ability] to ride at the limit and how dominant and unrelenting Mads Pedersen is. I like to try and take the best from each.” But Isaac del Toro remains very much his own man.
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