Del Toro v Ayuso: Teammates AND rivals
Plus, for Friends of the Podcast: Daniel speaks to Romain Bardet
New episode for Friends of the Podcast subscribers
At the end of this Giro d’Italia, Romain Bardet will end a Grand Tour career spanning over a decade and bejewelled with two podium finishes in the Tour de France – a fortnight before concluding his road racing career definitively at the Dauphiné.
On the Giro’s final rest-day, Daniel Friebe sat down with the Team Picnic PostNL elder statesman to look back at past achievements and cast a glance forward at where professional cycling is heading as Bardet bows out.
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Corrections Corner: Sorry for the confusion after Sunday’s 15th stage when the episode got uploaded with the title for the 12th stage. The audio is correct and the title was edited but it’s still showing the wrong title in some places.
Who deserves to win the Giro?
The strongest lucky rider or the luckiest strong rider?
by Lionel Birnie
Cycling can be a confusing, contradictory sport at times. Stage six to Napoli was neutralised for a significant stretch after a huge crash on wet, greasy roads. A former Giro winner, Jai Hindley, had to pull out. The times for the general classification and the points for the ciclamino jersey were cancelled for the day meaning that anyone who wasn’t interested in the stage win could sit up without penalty. A small group of riders did contest the sprint finish but it was a very lukewarm conclusion to the stage. The possibility of riders going down like skittles, or another general classification contender being wiped out by a crash, was too much of a risk for the organisers.
And yet on Saturday a crash on the finishing circuit in Nova Gorica, 23 kilometres from the end, split the peloton into pieces, costing several overall contenders valuable time and wrecking Giulio Ciccone’s (outside) hopes of finishing on the podium. Rain had made stretches of the course treacherous. An awkward corner, cobblestones, and the white lines of a pedestrian crossing were all slick and down they went. But there was no talk of neutralisation because the race was in full swing. Kasper Asgreen, the eventual stage winner, was still out in front with two other riders. Olav Kooij and Kaden Groves sensed another victory, the maglia rosa Isaac Del Toro made the front group, as did Simon Yates, Richard Carapaz and a couple of others who fancied their chances of moving up the overall standings.
But when the results were confirmed we could see the damage. Juan Ayuso – Del Toro’s teammate – Primož Roglič and Egan Bernal, lost 48 seconds. Antonio Tiberi, lying third overall, was in the next group and eventually lost 1:44, slipping to eighth place. And although Ciccone made it to the finish, 16 minutes after the winner, in the hope that he might recover enough from the fall to fight for a stage win, he was a non-starter on Sunday.
Crashes – as we saw on the gravel in Tuscany at the end of the first week – have played a significant role in sorting out the general classification so far. Roglič lost time on the white roads, and was the significant casualty on Sunday, conceding another minute-and-a-half as a result of soreness sustained on his home soil the previous afternoon.
There’s a (mistaken) belief that the strongest rider should win, but grand tours have never been as straightforward as that. Luck plays a huge part too. It’s rare that a rider who has suffered a significant crash ends up winning overall. Staying upright and avoiding trouble is part of the game.
After all, Del Toro stayed up – and survived a heart-stopping rear-wheel skid second time round on the Slovenian cobbles – while his teammate Ayuso lost more time, which could be critical in the final week if the young Mexican can cling on in the highest mountains.
You could make the argument that time bonuses are a more artificial influence on the standings. Del Toro owes more than a quarter of his advantage over Simon Yates to seconds won at either the finish line or in the Red Bull KM sprints.
Time trials can have a far more chilling impact on the overall race too, with the climbers at such a disadvantage that they can surrender ground it’s simply not feasible to recover in the mountains.
Take Einer Rubio of Movistar, who lies 13th overall, 4:26 adrift of the race lead. If you take out the time bonuses, the gravel stage, and the two time trials, he’s conceded just 16 seconds to Del Toro on the road (seven at Tagliacozzo at the end of the first week, and nine at Vicenza on Friday).
Of course, it’s an absurdity because where do you draw the line? Everything counts – except when it doesn’t, of course.
And the fundamental question, as with all grand tours, is who deserves to win? Should it be the strongest lucky rider or the luckiest strong rider?
* * *
So, as the Giro gets ready to resume for the final stretch to Rome, what can we expect?
With four big mountain stages today (Tuesday), tomorrow, Friday and Saturday, Del Toro will come under pressure from the likes of Simon Yates, Richard Carapaz, Derek Gee and Egan Bernal. Juan Ayuso is perfectly placed to watch and wait to see if his younger teammate falters but, so far, Del Toro has looked the livelier of the two. Everyone will hope to exploit the internal rivalry at UAE Team Emirates to their advantage. Ayuso will surely hope that his job marking dangerous moves will eventually help him to crack Del Toro so he can win the Giro himself so it’ll be interesting to see over these next two stages just how keen and quick he is to react to the moves. Reacting to Yates, Carapaz and Gee, or even Bernal and Roglič, makes perfect sense, but if we see Ayuso on his toes at the sight of someone like Damiano Caruso or Thymen Arensman accelerating we’ll know just how much he favours his own ambitions.
If Del Toro is up to the challenge from external opponents, it’ll be fascinating to see whether Ayuso loses patience waiting for his opportunity and we see the cracks in the cohesion at Team UAE Emirates. Surely in this day and age we’re unlikely to see a repeat of Hinault v LeMond at the 1986 Tour or Roche v Visentini at the 1987 Giro, when two teammates could barely conceal their hostility on the road. But both riders are young – Ayuso is 22, Del Toro is 21 – and in the absence of Tadej Pogačar there’s a lot at stake for each of them. Del Toro is in his rights to expect full support but Ayuso has more grand tour experience and has a third and a fourth place finish at the Vuelta to his name. UAE Team Emirates would be smart to hedge their bets for a couple of days but must be wary someone doesn’t sneak up through the middle.
What about Roglič? It’s been an uncharacteristic Giro so far for the Slovenian and he might be running out of road. Apart from a brief flourish in Albania he’s raced far more conservatively than we’re used to seeing. Instead of chasing the time bonuses and frequent small gains that have been his trademark in stage races short and long, he’s ridden defensively, with half his mind on the Tour de France, perhaps, and it hasn’t worked out. The time lost on Sunday looks to have done for his chances of becoming the oldest Giro winner and, although his team says he’ll start stage 16, it won’t be a surprise to see him call time early if he loses more ground in the mountains.
Il Barone’s Giro gallery
The Giro d’Italia wine collection by Dvine Cellars
Toast the Giro, as it makes it way around Italy, with a case of six wines curated by Greg Andrews and Luciana Girotto of Dvine Cellars in London.
The Girovagando case is available to all listeners in the UK but if you live elsewhere you should be able to source similar wines.
The wines (in Giro route order)
• Salice Salentino Il Pumo 2021, San Marzano, Puglia
• Vigneti Tardis, Martedì Paestum Rosso, Campania
• Lambrusco del Fondatore 2023, Cleto Chiarli, Emilia-Romagna
• Incrocio Manzoni Costa degli Angeli 2022/23, Casa Paolin, Veneto
• Selida Gewürztraminer 2023, Tramin, Alto-Adige
• Coste delle Sesia 2022/23, Orbello, Tenute Sella, Piedmont
The final week starts here… there’s mountains, mountains and more mountains on the horizon as Daniel is joined by Pelacchi for the countdown to Rome.