Pro Cycling 2025

Right on time he appears

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Nero fiddles while Rome burns

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Wow, just back from the pub and it looks like I got that wrong!

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This is turning into Giro 2018 Take 2

Really bummed I missed what looks like it was the decisive move - happened before I started watching :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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This is wild. I NEED to see the footage inside the UAE team car after this.

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Ditto, I didn’t realise it was a early start and my 55 miles to the pub and 12 miles home got in the way!

The final GC time differences will tell a completely different story than the actual race. Just brain dead tactics by UAE

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This is wild.. you would think we’d see a little more fight out of Del Toro and Carapaz to close that gap to Yates, looks like they’re just putzing along being petty of who’s going to put in the work.

Anyone have any idea why they didn’t push harder?

Today has been a textbook case of proper tactics AND tactics that were misplayed.

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del Torro was just watching Carapaz. And when Carapaz couldn’t drop del Torro on the Finestre, he stopped working. But at the point, Yates had connected with van Aert, and that was it. Wout did yeoman work to pull out the gap, and del Torro just capitulated and stopped riding.

This was a masterclass in how to throw away a potential Grand Tour victory :thinking:

Can someone explain del Torro’s sprint at the end? Really? Sprinting for what after throwing away a potential Grand Tour win?

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Poor Simon. All that work and he only get 3rd place on the day /s

Greatest comeback in the history of the Giro? At least in recent memory.

The narrative of the 2018 Finestre collapse to complete redemption 7 years later is one for the ages.

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Visma deserved the win, but it is still yet another Visma grand tour title (yawn). Del Toro is the sensation of the ’25 Giro. Carapaz vs del Toro during the last stages was great to watch.

WOW just WOW. What a win and what a HUGE mistake by those two and their team managers.

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I don’t think it’s a huge mistake by Carapaz. I’m not sure what else hĆ© could do but try to get del Toro to work. He tried dropping him repeatedly and couldn’t.

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How stupid of del toro!

The thought was that Yates was 90s behind and in 3rd.

  1. Del toro did not want to match the 1-2 punches of carapaz and Yates
  2. he was counting on carapaz to care about 2nd place and not allow Yates to jump him

In the end, if you want to win a grand tour, you have to take bull by the horns and risk everything. Big gamble didn’t pay off.

Happy for Yates and congrats to him!

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What a fun stage and finale to the Giro. Most open and competitive grand tour of the last few years

I was dubious of the course design - but with no clear cut favorite the final week was exactly what the organizers were hoping for - many roughly equal riders throwing down over and over again

Breathtakingly bad tactics by UAE and EF today.

Everyone’s talking about the redemption arc for Yates, rightfully so, but how about the parallels to Carapaz’s victory in the Giro coming largely because two other riders marked each other out of the race?

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While the tactics were bad, I think they were bad for different reasons than everyone is saying.

For starters, on the podcasts I’ve been listening to they have been expecting Del Toro to lose the jersey today for the past 2 weeks. It shifted slightly from ā€œit’s inevitable he’ll lose it todayā€ to ā€œhe’ll most likely lose it today unless UAE has perfect tacticsā€ after some of his recent performances.

UAE knew this too, which is why they kept riding for Ayuso until his knee imploded. Del Toro weighs 8kg more than Carapaz and Yates, has never proven consistency in a 3 week race, and to boot he’s been burning matches consistently throughout the last 3 weeks to gain seconds when anyone could look at the profile and see that today could be decided by minutes.

The real stupidity in UAE’s tactics is the reason I dislike them as a team: the majority of their team is just gobbling up every potential GC leader with oil money then going into every race with 4+ people riding for their own GC due to their egos. While I like McNulty, him riding for GC in this race was pure idiocy. He should have purposely lost time, saved his strength and gone into the break today as a satellite rider so he could do the same for Del Toro as Wout did for Yates. That, plus the reckless expenditure of energy due to the inexperience and enthusiasm of youth is where the race was truly lost, not the staring match with Carapaz.

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I really wonder how much of UAE’s brain dead tactics are due to having Pog who can win without tactics? This whole Giro feels like UAE had no plan how to win, and they just thought del Torro would do a Pog and win ā€œjust causeā€

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Majka has to be absolutely pissed off at Del Toro’s (lack of) action today. That guy has absolutely buried himself for the young guy to literally watch the race ride away, and then sprint for a completely useless placinf

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