Isaac del Toro abandons Itzulia after crash

The 22 year-old-Mexican, who had torn through the early season with an overall victory at the UAE Tour and a dominant Tirreno–Adriatico title, abandoned during stage three on Wednesday after being involved in a crash with roughly 80 kilometres remaining.

Del Toro did attempt to continue after the crash, but was ultimately too battered to finish the stage. An initial assessment was carried out on the spot, where it looked like the young rider was struggling in particular to put weight on his right leg.

Before the incident, Del Toro’s chances of back-to-back WorldTour stage race GCs were already slim after a rather disappointing, by his standards, individual time trial on stage 1, where he lost 51 seconds to the French prodigy, Paul Seixas.

That was compounded on stage 2, where Del Toro could not keep up with Seixas’ pace and conceded nearly two minutes, finishing 11th on the stage.

Del Toro’s condition has not been confirmed at the time of publication, but he is expected to head into a block of racing in the Ardennes Classics. This includes a protected role at the Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne, which will take place without Tadej Pogačar, before returning to support the Slovenian in his pursuit of another Liège–Bastogne–Liège.