Key Takeaways: 2025 Giro d'Italia Stage 15 & Rest Day Refletions
Breaking down how Stage 15 was won, UAE's controversial decision & three rest day reflections before the Giro's brutal, final week kicks off on Tuesday
Lidl-Trek’s Carlos Verona won yesterday’s Stage 15 of the Giro d’Italia, which featured the first in a flurry of difficult mountain stages, with an impressive long-range solo attack from a breakaway. Further back in the group of General Classification favorites, things started to take shape on the endless slopes of Monte Grappa en route to the town of Asiago in the Alpine foothills, with Egan Bernal and Ineos continuing to press the other contenders and UAE’s Isaac del Toro marking anything that moves.
While no time gaps were created between the main favorites, the sight of Juan Ayuso appearing to struggle to hold pace, while his UAE team paced him back to their own race leader after he was distanced, and an injured-looking Primož Roglič losing well over a minute, left major clues about what to expect in the brutal third week that awaits following today’s final rest day.
Check out the blow-by-blow Stage 15 breakdown, as well as a few rest day reflections, below:
Stage Top Five:
1) Carlos Verona (Lidl-Trek) +0
2) Florian Stork (Tudor Pro Cycling Team) +22
3) Christian Scaroni (XDS Astana Team) +23
4) Romain Bardet (Team Picnic PostNL) +23
5) Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) +23
GC Top Ten:
1) Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +0
2) Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) +1:20
3) Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +1:26
4) Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +2:07
5) Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) +2:54
6) Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Victorious) +2:55
7) Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) +3:02
8) Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) +3:38
9) Thymen Arensman (INEOS Grenadiers) +3:45
10) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +3:53
GC Top Five (+Bernal) Time Changes Relative to Del Toro Week 2
1) Derek Gee +1:05
2) Simon Yates +22
3) Isaac del Toro +0
4) Juan Ayuso -13
5) Richard Carapaz -27
6) Egan Bernal -1’41
Where The GC Top Five Have Won (+)/Lost(-) Time Relative to Del Toro in Week Two
Stage 10 Individual Time Trial
Derek Gee +1’22
Juan Ayuso +48
Simon Yates +39
Isaac Del Toro +0
Richard Carapaz −29
Stage 11 Mountain Stage
Richard Carapaz +14
Isaac Del Toro +0
Juan Ayuso −6
Simon Yates -6
Derek Gee -6
Stage 12 Sprint Stage
Isaac Del Toro +0
Richard Carapaz -2
Juan Ayuso −2
Simon Yates -2
Derek Gee -2
Stage 13 Hilly Stage
Isaac Del Toro +0
Juan Ayuso −5
Richard Carapaz -9
Simon Yates -9
Derek Gee -9
Stage 14 Flat Stage with Crash
Isaac Del Toro +0
Simon Yates +0
Richard Carapaz +0
Derek Gee +0
Juan Ayuso −48
Time Splits on Each Type of Terrain Stages 1-15:
Flat to Rolling Stages
Isaac Del Toro +0
Richard Carapaz -1’01
Simon Yates -1’03
Juan Ayuso -1’58
Derek Gee -3’22
Time Bonuses
Isaac Del Toro +0
Juan Ayuso -22
Richard Carapaz -26
Simon Yates -36
Derek Gee -36
Mountain Stages
Richard Carapaz +10
Juan Ayuso +4
Isaac Del Toro +0
Simon Yates -4
Gerek Gee -7
Time Trials
Derek Gee +1’11
Juan Ayuso +49
Simon Yates +23
Isaac Del Toro +0
Richard Carapaz −50
Catch Up Quick (become a premium member to receive full access to daily stage breakdowns):
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6
Stage 7
Stage 8
Stage 9
Rest Day
Stage 10
Stage 11
Stage 12
Stage 13
Stage 14
BTP’s Spring Classics Coverage is brought to you by JOIN Cycling
The JOIN Cycling App is a smart training platform that adapts to your schedule, goals, and fitness level, offering dynamic, science-backed workouts. It’s perfect for cyclists of all levels, balancing training and recovery efficiently. With AI-driven adjustments and flexibility, JOIN helps you stay motivated and improve consistently.
Redeem a free month through our special BTP link.
Stage 15 Race Notebook
BTP is seamlessly following every twist and turn of the Giro d’Italia with the fantastic Tour Tracker app (iPhone/Android/Web)
112.8km-to-go: After an incredibly fast opening 100 kilometers due to a frantic fight for the breakaway, UAE is on the front heading into the day’s first, and biggest, climb, the Monte Grappa, to keep the breakaway’s gap in check, currently at 3’46, since it contains outside GC contender Einer Rubio (down 4’26 heading into the stage).
95.4km: Near the top of the climb, Juan Ayuso suffers a mechanical issue, and slowly makes his way back to the peloton after pausing to get bottles and have a chat at his team car. As soon as he makes contact with the rear of the peloton, Ineos comes to the front to increase the pace.
92.3km: Shortly after, Ineos’ Egan Bernal attacks, and is immediately, and unnecessarily, marked by Isaac del Toro, who still has a full UAE team able to set a high tempo to keep Bernal in check.
91.6km: In fact, with Ayuso still in the group, and key GC contenders like Richard Carapaz and Derek Gee bridging up to the Bernal/Del Toro group, UAE sets a hard pace to reel them in. This sets up an awkward-looking scenario where UAE is chasing its own Maglia Rosa.
43.1km: With UAE welding the race back together over the summit of the Monte Grappa, a new breakaway rips clear on the descent. Lidl-Trek’s Carlos Verona attacks clear of this group at the base of the final climb soon after.
29.1km: With UAE setting the pace in the peloton, Richard Carapaz attacks and is marked personally by Del Toro, who is clearly not trusting his team to nail everything back. While nearly everyone is able to eventually get on terms, Primož Roglič doesn't even attempt to respond and is quickly dropped and distanced.
26.8km: When Carapaz has been brought back, Derek Gee launches a strong attack, and is also marked personally by Del Toro. This move ejects his remaining domestiques, and even has Juan Ayuso hanging on for dear life at the back, and means he is now temporarily isolated due to his own acceleration. His shedding of teammates also means the pace slows as soon as Gee sees Del Toro is there, which allows Roglič, who is already close to a minute behind, to decrease the gap.
20.8km: Due to this slowing, Del Toro’s UAE teammates are able to get back to the front of the GC group and quickly increase the pace in an attempt to bury Roglič, now 44 seconds back, and pull out as big of a gap as possible.
Finish: Up front, Verona holds on to win the stage, with his breakaway companions coming in shortly after, and the lead GC group right on their heels. Roglič crosses the line 1’30 behind them, leaving his chances of an overall win, or even his presence at the start line on Tuesday, in doubt.
Three Rest Day Reflections
1) UAE’s Tricky Dual-Leader Tactics: Isaac del Toro, the leader of the race and the rider who looks significantly stronger than the rest of the GC contenders, was able to respond to attacks, but his UAE team paced behind with Juan Ayuso in the wheels. This was somewhat controversial and showed yet again that UAE doesn’t fully trust Del Toro’s ability over three weeks, but if we break down the logic behind it, it makes more sense.
First of all, there is no reason for Del Toro to be responding to these moves personally since burning valuable matches marking a rider over 3 minutes behind him when he has a full team in the peloton makes zero sense.
Also, by doing so, he is forcing his own teammates to ride harder, increasing their fatigue for later in the race and isolating himself.
Secondly, if we break down the specific outcomes of each decision the team could have made in that situation, and the potential outcomes, it makes it clear that UAE should have paced (as bad as the optics were), since it eliminated the ultimate downside of Juan Ayuso being isolated up the road and having a fueling or mechanical issue.
In fact, the only better option would have been for Del Toro not to respond and remain tucked in his strong teammates’ wheels behind as they methodically nailed back the move.
But while they may have gotten out of Stage 15 without significantly hurting Del Toro’s chances of potentially winning the Giro as they attempted to nurse along a clearly struggling Ayuso, at some point, their insistence on doing so will cause major problems.
It may be as soon as Stage 16, but, considering Ayuso’s current form, UAE will have to make a decision about whether to have the team support Del Toro as he follows the strongest riders, or if they want everyone to hang back and ride for a dropped Ayuso
2) Despite Isaac del Toro’s Dominance Thus Far, This Race is Wide Open: If we look ahead to the third week and attempt to forecast who will win this race, we can narrow down a select group of contenders.
We have an odd scenario where the rider who has the incredible combo of a time advantage while looking like the best rider in the race, Del Toro clearly doesn’t have the full support of his team.
Instead, they are fully backing Ayuso, which their (correct) decision to pace after Del Toro made clear.
Unfortunately for UAE, and Ayuso, even though he finished in the front GC group, he looked well off the pace today anytime the issue was pressed, and spent a not insignificant amount of time back at the team car early in the stage, and wasn’t exactly quick to get back to the peloton after his mechanical on the Monte Grappa.
Perhaps his struggles today were due to complications from his stage 9 crash and stitches in his knee, but with the hardest third week in the last 25 editions of the Giro awaiting, it doesn’t bode well for his chances later on.
Assuming Ayuso’s struggles continue and that Del Toro isn’t able to soft-pedal through the hardest series of alpine stages he has ever raced to defend his race lead, and is forced to respond to some of the sport’s best climbers on some of the hardest climbs riders will face all season, the question of who emerges as the top GC threat is interesting.
In fact, with only three mountain stages raced so far (Stages 7, 11, 15), all being relatively mild and/or with the hardest climbs extremely far from the finish, and with four of the remaining six stages being the four hardest stages in the race, it wouldn’t be absurd to suggeset this GC battle has yet to truly begin.
With this in mind, below is a list of GC contenders that I think will prove to be most pronounced in the third week, in the order of how much I think they can challenge for the overall win:
Simon Yates, currently in second overall and an incredible climber, is an obvious choice.
However, he hasn’t been able to consistently stay with the best on the hardest climbs in recent years, often leaking small amounts of time any time there is a major acceleration from a top rider.
Richard Carapaz is the people’s favorite, and while he looks strong and has the attacking nature to take advantage of a weakening UAE duo, he hasn’t been able to outclimb the best in lead GC groups in recent years.
This is a major issue with the best ‘attacking’ terrain behind us, and the race heading into a pure test of sustained power over multiple massive mountains in a single stage.
Derek Gee is my personal favorite considering the fact that he has lost more than he is trailing Del Toro by due to positioning-related mistakes and crashes on flat, fast stages, and the remainder of the Giro will feature long punishing mountain stages, which will suit his sustained power more than the explosive power of Carapaz and Simon Yates.
However, even if he looks strong and the course suits his high sustained power, he still has minutes to make up on both Del Toro and Yates, and will have to do all of it on some of the hardest climbs of the year.
Egan Bernal is another popular choice pundits and fans have been throwing out there, but they seem to be glossing over the fact that he is over three minutes off the lead, and minutes behind Simon Yates, Juan Ayuso, and Richard Carapaz, without showing a consistent ability to outclimb them in recent years.
While there isn’t a clear candidate to overtake Isaac del Toro in the GC based on the pros and cons list above, one thing potential red flag that jumped out to me when going through the time gained and lost splits per week and course type is that he is neither the “hottest” rider based on time gained and lost in recent stages, nor has he consistently taken time on his rivals on mountain stages or time trials.
This is particularly concerning when we consider that time trials and our limited mountain stages so far are the closest approximation to the physical effort required to excel on the brutal parcours we will see in the final week.
3) The Crashes Appear to Have Finally Caught Up to Primož Roglič: With Primož Roglič now 3’53 behind Del Toro heading into the final rest day, and looking seriously limited due to his multiple crashes on Stage 15, it seems like his run at a sixth career Grand Tour is done.
After all, like Ayuso, if he is struggling to hold the pace now, it seems difficult to imagine he will be able to put time into the others when the parcours get even harder in a day’s time.
Having said this, if we look back at the last decade of the Giro, there have been three major third-week comebacks, with both Froome and Nibali looking equally off-the-pace before turning things around.
Biggest Recent Third-Week Giro Comebacks:
2020: Tao Geoghegan Hart - 2’57 behind heading into final rest day
2018: Chris Froome - 4’52 behind heading into final rest day
2016: Vincenzo Nibali - 2’52 behind heading into final rest day (would drop to 4’43 after Stage 16)If Roglič remains in the race after Monday’s rest day, it would be silly to completely write him off, since these comebacks were primarily a function of great champions being backed into a corner and having nothing to lose by attacking on the brutally difficult third week terrain that the Giro serves up.
Stage 16 Preview
Tuesday’s 203-kilometer stage from the Prosecco region into the peaks above Lake Garda features far more climbing than the peloton has seen so far at this Giro, with 4,737 vertical meters (15,600 feet) and four major climbs all greater than 10 kilometers in length, and the final climb having an average gradient of nearly 9% for the second half of the climb.
Worth noting is that while this is by far the hardest stage of the race so far, it is still sub-alpine, meaning this Giro still has levels to go before it starts testing the peloton with the high alpine passes it will serve up in the final few stages.
Still, these climbs are significant and will test the riders in a way they haven’t yet been tested, and are sure to produce a major GC showdown that will finally tell us who is really in contention for the overall win.
Prediction: Simon Yates wins the stage ahead of an elite GC group to chip away at Del Toro’s overall lead.
A 5+ heads off to your daily analysis of each stage.
I have followed professional cycling for 38 years and I’ve never seen such detailed insight, analysis and predictions as you present after each stage.
Can’t thank you enough.