How Isaac del Toro became the Giro d’Italia’s break-out star

Isaac del Toro’s breakthrough ride to second place at the Giro d’Italia did not come from nothing. It was the product of years of hard work and dedication, both from the man himself and those who played their part in developing him and providing for him the pathway to success.

The credit for discovering Del Toro lies with A.R Monex, a team which was born to provide young Mexican riders with a route into professional cycling. The team, which has a women’s squad as well as junior and under-23 men’s squads, was founded by the three Rodríguez brothers, Alejandro, Luis and Roberto, after they themselves attempted to become professional riders and realised how poorly prepared they were. 

They wanted to do something to improve the prospects of young Mexican cyclists and began developing the team. The Rodríguez brothers came across Del Toro when he was 15-years-old and he was part of their system until he joined UAE Team Emirates at the beginning of last year. 

For them, his astonishing Giro wasn’t a surprise. They know his numbers and his potential. For Alejandro Rodríguez, Del Toro’s success is the realisation of a long-held dream and creates a sense of pride towards the rider he has helped to guide.

“I was very proud of him,” Rodríguez tells me from his home in San Marino where the team is based, having just travelled back from Rome to see Del Toro cross the line in the Giro’s white jersey as best young rider. “The mission of this program is to take Mexico back to the lead of the sport, and he's just accomplishing that.”

Del Toro held the pink jersey for ten stages before a stand-off with Richard Carapaz on the Colle delle Finestre on stage 20 allowed Simon Yates to build a race-winning advantage. No-one knows the full extent of what happened there, but it doesn’t change Rodríguez’s feelings about his performance.

“It was a great first 19 days. Then we saw the penultimate stage and then, you know, it was just pure cycling. I'm very sure that he did his best and probably he was on the limit. Only he knows what he was feeling. Before that stage, we were very conscious that this kind of thing can happen in this kind of stage,” he says.

“Whatever the result, we were already very proud of him and we are still. And I'm very sure that I'm speaking about this feeling not only for myself, but for the entire country,” he continues. “I mean, he's the new hero. Basically this is like a dream come true, because that's our vision to create heroes that can inspire the new generations. So it's just amazing.”

Del Toro seemed to portray a range of character traits throughout the Giro, from the humble manner with which he spoke about his rivals, to the tenacity of his stage win, coming back from losing time the previous day. He appeared to show maturity beyond his 21 years and a calmness under pressure. 

He comes from the port city of Ensenada, south of Tijuana on the west coast of Mexico. Born into a cycling-mad family, Del Toro always knew what he wanted to be. Rodríguez lifted the lid on what Del Toro was like when he joined the A.R Monex team back in 2019. 

“When he arrived at the team, he was just this very focused kid. He was 15 years old and he was fully concentrated on what he was doing at the moment,” he says. “So the rest of the guys were playing as a teenager would do, and this guy was just saving energy all the time. And then when they were riding, you could see that he had something extra, so to say, because the rest of the guys would be suffering up here, and he would be doing wheelies, always just having fun. It was very noticeable how much he liked cycling, how much he liked this kind of high-performance lifestyle and how much he was very, very clear on what he wanted of life and what he wanted of himself.”

“Sometimes, even for some of our staff members, it was hard to work with him, because at times it felt like he was a bit overdoing it… He was born to a cycling family, so there was a lot of tradition, and basically, sometimes some of the guys wouldn't be as focused as he would be, so he was just asking the best of them, because he was asking the best of himself.”

Football is by far the biggest sport in Mexico. Mexicans are hugely patriotic and whenever the national team succeeds in a big match, large crowds gather around the Ángel de la Independencia in the centre of Mexico City and celebrate. 

For perhaps the first time ever, last week crowds began to congregate around the famous monument because of a cyclist; such is the impact of Del Toro’s achievements in Italy. The numbers weren’t quite as many as the football team would usually get, but who knows what the response would have been had Del Toro managed to bring home the maglia rosa.

“People gathered because everyone is very proud of him,” Rodríguez says. “It was a huge celebration. Every country is in need of positive heroes and he is one of them already. He's already achieved the level of legend at his young age.”

Mexican TV arrived in Italy for the Giro’s final week and Del Toro’s name was all over news reports across the country. He was already a known sports star after his 2023 Tour de l’Avenir success, but the Giro d’Italia has given him a new status. 

Mexico has had cycling success in the past, but Raúl Alcalá’s Tour de France 1989 and 1990 stage victories and Julio Pérez Cuapio’s wins in the Giro in the early 2000s are now distant memories. In terms of status and recognition, Rodríguez thinks that Del Toro has surpassed both and will now go on to inspire a generation of young Mexicans to jump on a bike. 

“I haven't seen anything like this before, like ever. The last one to do remarkable results was Raúl Alcalá…no one in Mexico has ever done it in the fashion that he's doing.”

“It's a great success for himself, but I think for Mexican cycling as well.”