Third Overall in His First Tour de France, Isaac Del Toro Is Living Up to the Hype

It’s the first week of his first Tour de France and Isaac del Toro is sitting third overall.

He’s 2:27 off his teammate Tadej Pogačar and just 45 seconds behind two-time Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).

Consider he also picked up a stage win on day two and it’s not bad at all for a rider who is still just 22 years of age.

Del Toro has worked for UAE Emirates-XRG teammate Tadej Pogačar in the race, putting in big efforts which served as a platform for the four-time Tour winner.

He did a driving surge in the race opening team time trial, after which Pogačar set the fastest climbing time. He also put in another big burst of effort on the Tourmalet on stage 6, after which Pogačar launched and put over two minutes into his rivals.

Had he ridden for himself, had he been part of a team where he was designated leader, he’d likely be even closer to yellow.

So was he expecting this level of performance in his first Tour?

“I don’t know,” he said on Sunday afternoon, clad in the white jersey of best young rider.

“Everybody knows we can do different plans and maybe in one of them it can be. But not like this, really. I know it’s possible. But I’m just trying to enjoy all of this, to enjoy the Tour and to have fun.”

Having fun is a peculiar way of looking at a debut in arguably the most gruelling competition in endurance sport but, like Pogačar, Del Toro does appear to be someone who enjoys what he does.

He’s less outgoing than the Slovenian but the two of them appear to be having a ball, laughing and joking around at times.

Their stage wins certainly helped boost the mood.

Everything going to plan

Monday’s rest day will follow the template of countless other rest days in the history of the race.

The riders have burned a phenomenal amount of energy and already racked up over 1,400km of racing.

Suddenly taking a day off can be counterproductive, the body being disrupted by an abrupt change, and so teams customarily go out for training rides.

This keeps the body moving and in that way ensures the chances of an off day when the race restarts Tuesday is minimized.

Del Toro is leaving the plans for Monday up to others.

“I don’t know,” he said, when asked what the team would do.

“They do the plans and the coffee shop, I just follow the guys.”

He’ll hope for good legs when the action gets underway once again Tuesday.

That’s a very difficult race to Le Lioran with two category 1 climbs coming towards the finish.

He may well have a big part to play in setting things up for a Pogačar win, but will also hope to ride well himself.

Right now Del Toro is well placed to potentially end his first Tour on the podium. If that happens it would be a big, big achievement but, even so, it doesn’t sound like he is fixating too much on where the other riders are in the GC.

“I know who is fourth, but not who is fifth,” he said.

Instead of overthinking things, he is going with the flow. That’s helped by his overall win in the Tour Auvergne Rhône Alpes in May, as well as GC wins in the UAE Tour and in Tirreno-Adriatico.

“I already did a quite good year, and all this week is going according to the plan,” he said.

“We stick to the plan, we try to do our best as a team, and we manage to do it every day.”