Tom Dumoulin didn’t make it to the end of the Giro d’Italia broadcast this year. Speaking on the Cycling Gala’s De Laatste Etappe podcast on Monday night, the 2017 Giro winner said he simply couldn’t keep watching what he felt was a baffling collapse by UAE Team Emirates and their young leader, Isaac Del Toro.
“I really turned it off,” Dumoulin told host Sander Kleikers, laughing at the memory but still sounding exasperated. “I didn’t have to watch so much stupidity.” He added that Del Toro “would have won that Giro easily” had the team managed the race differently.
The dramatic day of racing at the Giro
The De Laatste Etappe—recorded as a live podcast and as reported by WielerFlits—opened with each guest sharing their “moment of the year.” Fellow analyst Stef Clement chose the Giro’s dramatic finale, highlighting the showdown on the Colle delle Finestre, where Del Toro and Richard Carapaz practically marked each other to a standstill while Simon Yates surged ahead with help from Wout van Aert. “Tom Dumoulin even turned it off,” Clement joked, tossing the conversation his way.
Dumoulin didn’t dispute it. He said he couldn’t understand why UAE allowed the race to slip away, insisting the situation “wasn’t complicated.” While he acknowledged that Yates had “a super day,” Dumoulin argued that the gap should never have grown as large as it did. “Of course Yates might have ridden away,” he said on the podcast, “but never with that much of a lead.”
Turned off the TV
He admitted the frustration got the better of him. “I still don’t understand it to this day. It just made me angry, so I turned off the TV.”
Still, he believes the young Mexican may eventually look back at this Giro with regret. “That might have been his chance,” Dumoulin said. “Opportunities don’t always come again.”
Geraint Thomas–who recently retired but will not be leaving the sport anytime soon, said something similar this summer. The new Ineos – Grenadiers director of racing managed to watch the entire stage–but wasn’t thrilled about the strategy employed by the Mexican. When Simon Yates attached Del Toro and Richard Carapaz (EF – Education First), the former Tour de France winner couldn’t believe his eyes. On his Watts Occurring podcast, he told Luke Rowe Del Toro’s bad decision had nothing to do with lack of experience. “Do you need…
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