Giro d'Italia Rest Day Reflections

Breaking down what we’ve learned so far at the 2025 Giro d'Italia & where the GC will go from here

After the opening nine stages of the 2025 Giro d’Italia, it’s clear that the battle for the Maglia Rosa is shaping up to be far more complex and wide open than initially anticipated. Despite UAE Team Emirates holding both first and second place overall with Isaac del Toro and Juan Ayuso, this set of leaders, along with the horde of potential contenders, including former Grand Tour winners, bunched together behind, like Primož Roglič, Richard Carapaz, Egan Bernal and Simon Yates, have the potential to greatly complicate their jersey defense.

While the 21-year-old Del Toro has impressed so far, his extremely young age and inexperience make him a risky bet to back. Additionally, questions remain about UAE’s pre-race leader, Juan Ayuso, who has yet to win a Grand Tour and appears slightly banged up after receiving stitches on his knee following a crash on yesterday’s gravel. With the race likely only intensifying as it heads into its second week, balancing these goals and attempting to hold off the rest should create a fascinating tension. Let’s take a look at how we got here and what to expect in the coming week:

Current GC Top Ten:
1) Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates XRG) +0
2) Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates XRG) +1:13
3) Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) +1:30
4) Richard Carapaz (EF Education–EasyPost) +1:40
5) Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) +1:41
6) Simon Yates (Team Visma–Lease a Bike) +1:42
7) Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) +1:57
8) Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates XRG) +1:59
9) Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates XRG) +2:01
10) Primož Roglič (Red Bull–BORA–Hansgrohe) +2:25

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Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6
Stage 7
Stage 8
Stage 9

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Where Time Has Been Won/Lost So Far

To discern how the GC race will play out in the coming weeks, let’s look at where each of what I consider to be the six most potent potential winners took or lost time so far. I’ve isolated every stage where the top three have won/lost time relative to each other so far and how much time they won(+) or lost(-).

Stage 2 Time Trial
Primož Roglič +0
Juan Ayuso -16
Isaac del Toro -17
Antonio Tiberi -25
Richard Carapaz -37
Egan Bernal -48

Stage 4 Sprint Stage
Isaac del Toro +0
Primož Roglič -2
Juan Ayuso -4
Antonio Tiberi -4
Egan Bernal -4
Richard Carapaz -4

Stage 7 Summit Finish
Juan Ayuso +0
Isaac del Toro -4
Egan Bernal -6
Primož Roglič -10
Antonio Tiberi -10
Richard Carapaz -10

Stage 8 Hills
Juan Ayuso +0
Isaac del Toro -1
Egan Bernal -1
Primož Roglič -1
Antonio Tiberi -1
Richard Carapaz -1

Stage 9 Gravel
Isaac del Toro +0
Richard Carapaz -1’10
Antonio Tiberi -1’12
Juan Ayuso -1’19
Egan Bernal -1’20
Primož Roglič -2’34

Course Type Where Time Was Won/Lost Relative to Del Toro

When looking at the course types where the other major GC riders have won/lost time relative to Isaac del Toro, we see a picture of a rider who has lost time in the two biggest set pieces, an uphill finish and a time trial, but struck gold on the gravel of Stage 9. Of course, Del Toro had to position himself well and put in a strong performance to finish ahead of the chase group, but the fact that he hasn’t distanced the others at will when the road goes uphill, and has ceded time in the time trial, speaks to the challenge he will face as he attempts to hold onto the race lead.

Mountains
Ayuso +4 (won)
Egan Bernal +0
Primož Roglič +0
Antonio Tiberi +0
Richard Carapaz +0

Time Trials
Roglič +17 (won)
Ayuso +1 (won)
Tiberi -8 (lost)
Carapaz -20 (lost)
Bernal -31 (lost)

Bonus Seconds
Juan Ayuso -12 (lost)
Egan Bernal -16 (lost)
Primož Roglič -20 (lost)
Antonio Tiberi -22 (lost)
Richard Carapaz -22 (lost)

Gravel
Carapaz -58 (lost)
Tiberi -1’00 (lost)
Ayuso -1’07 (lost)
Bernal -1’10 (lost)
Roglič -2’22 (lost)

Sprint
Ayuso +1 (won)
Egan Bernal +0
Primož Roglič +0
Antonio Tiberi +0
Richard Carapaz +0

GC Rest Day Reflections

1) After nine days of racing, Isaac Del Toro holds the race lead by a fairly wide margin. For example, the gap between him and his second-placed teammate Juan Ayuso (1’13), is greater than the gap between Ayuso and Primož Roglič in tenth (1’12).

• This clustering of top riders (four of these riders have won Grand Tours in their careers) means we are potentially primed for an interesting final two weeks, with the dominant team, UAE, being forced to defend their lead against a collection of strong riders across some tricky second week terrain, all while balancing the internal ambitions of their four well-placed riders.

  • UAE Riders Currently in Top Ten:
    1) Isaac del Toro +0
    2) Juan Ayuso +1’13
    8) Brandon McNulty +1’59
    9) Adam Yates +2’01

• This balancing will be key, since while Del Toro looked unstoppable on Sunday, history would suggest that it wouldn’t be wise for a team to put all of their resources into a 21-year-old Grand Tour leader.

  • Since the end of WWII, only three riders, Angelino Soler, Giuseppe Saronni, and Tadej Pogačar, have won Grand Tours while under the age of 22.

    • Of this group, Pogačar is the only rider to do so in the last 46 years, and the level of greatness he has reached since winning the Tour de France in 2020 tells us that to complete this task, a rider can’t merely be a star-level talent, but one of the best of all time.

  • Complicating this balancing act is the fact that Juan Ayuso crashed on Stage 9 and received stitches to his knee, which, of course, could cause problems in tomorrow’s time trial and the looming mountain stages.

2) If UAE has an issue with too many well-placed riders, Primož Roglič’s Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe team has the opposite problem, with few riders able to stay in the front group when the pace gets high. So far, only 21-year-old Giulio Pellizzari, who came over from the second-division Bardiani team over the off-season, has been able to stay with Roglič at key points of the race.

• Considering these extreme limitations, Roglič’s current GC position, with UAE forced to control the race while a horde of strong and motivated riders sit between Roglič and the race lead, isn’t the worst case scenario for Red Bull-Bora.

  • Of course, losing time on riders you are trying to finish ahead of is never ideal, but if we consider that Roglič is 1’12 behind the highest-placed rider who has previously podiumed at a Grand Tour, while a long time trial awaits tomorrow, the playing field is primed for Roglič to take back a chunk of his time losses tomorrow before hunting UAE’s lead over the most difficult terrain of the second week.

    • This plan will certainly hold its challenges, but in some ways, it’s more ideal for Roglič since it means his depleted team isn’t forced to control a slim GC lead while the others torment them.

      • It is also notable that in his last two Grand Tour wins, Roglič wasn’t leading heading into the final rest day, and tends to race better when forced to come from behind by attacking further down climbs versus going into an ultra-conservative model where he is just looking to limit mistakes by sprinting for time bonuses.

3) While I still believe that the race will be one by one of Juan Ayuso or Primož Roglič, simply due to the fact that they can take time on their rivals in both time trials and on the hardest climbs, one thing UAE needs to be mindful of is that focusing too heavily on Roglič could cost them the race before they realize it.

• For example, during the 2019 Giro d’Italia, Vincenzo Nibali and Primož Roglič were laser-focused on each other as the only legitimate overall contenders, to the point where they allowed Richard Carapaz to ride clear unmarked on multiple mountain stages and take massive chunks of time before ultimately winning the overall.

  • On the first rest day of that Giro after the Stage 9 time trial, Carapaz was in 20th place overall, 5’06 behind the race lead, 3’30 behind Roglič, and 1’46 behind Nibali.

    • With so many quality riders packed within the top 20 at this Giro (Derek Gee is currently 20th at 3’59 back), if UAE falls into defensive tactics and becomes too laser-focused on following Roglič, they will become vulnerable to the same dynamic that allowed Carapaz back in the race in 2019 (which ironically could be Carapaz yet again).

Stage 10 Preview

Tomorrow’s flat, 29-kilometer long time trial serves up a critical test for the overall contenders. With the top ten relatively clustered and the top riders appearing roughly equal on the climbs thus far, this will likely be a major sorting moment among the contenders.

• Additionally, it will give Primož Roglič a clean chance to make up a good chunk of the time he lost after his crash and mechanical in yesterday’s gravel stage.

  • If we consider that he put over a second per kilometer into Juan Ayuso, and even more into the rest of the field, back on Stage 2, Roglič could be looking to pull back well over a minute on sub-par time trialists like Bernal, Carapaz, and Ciccone.

• Another thing to watch is how the UAE riders in the top ten perform relative to one another. If race leader Del Toro delivers an unexpectedly strong time trial relative to his teammates, it could see him wrap both arms around team leadership, while a poor one could swing UAE’s support back to Ayuso.

• Prediction: Josh Tarling wins his second stage of this Giro. Roglič delivers a scorching ride to move into third overall, roughly 30 seconds behind Ayuso, while both riders still trail Del Toro in the race lead.