One day after he was dropped by several key rivals and appeared to be in danger of losing his grip on the pink jersey, Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) bounced back in style at the Giro d'Italia, storming to victory on stage 17.
Although Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) initially left Del Toro – and the rest of the GC hopefuls – behind with an attack on the Passo del Mortirolo, the Ecuadorian was brought back before the final climb of Le Motte, where Del Toro attacked in a move that only Carapaz could follow. That duo chased down the lone survivor of the early breakaway, Romain Bardet (Picnic-PostNL), on the flat run-in to the line. Del Toro left both of them behind with a stinging attack in the final kilometers and held on to take his first career Grand Tour stage win.
Bardet settled for runner-up honors with Carapaz in third, both of them four seconds behind Del Toro. With bonus seconds included, Del Toro thus extended his GC lead over Carapaz by 10 seconds to a total of 41 seconds – although Carapaz did move into second overall as Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) finished 11 seconds behind him and dropped to third overall, 51 seconds back on Del Toro.
[race_result id=13 stage_id=86456 count=10 gc=0 year=2025]
[race_result id=13 stage_id=86456 count=10 gc=10 year=2025]
How it happened
- After Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) won an early intermediate sprint, a big break formed with about 100 km to go in the stage from San Michele all’Adige to Bormio. Notable names out front included Bardet, Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Daniel Martínez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), and mountains classification leader Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana). The break took a gap of about three minutes into the day's first categorized climb, the Passo del Tonale. Erstwhile overall contender Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) was dropped early on the day.
- By the start of the Mortirolo, the break had about four minutes. Back in the bunch, EF and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe applied pressure that whittled away at the GC group, and Yates and Del Toro drifted to the back. As the breakaway riders attacked each other, with Afonso Eulálio of Bahrain Victorious soloing clear near the top, the GC selection got smaller and smaller.
- Carapaz made his move about a kilometer from the summit. That surge strung out the group, with Yates initially leaving Del Toro behind in pursuit. For a few moments, Del Toro appeared to be in real danger of losing his race lead.
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