“I’m not taking away the possibility that Del Toro could have still won that stage, but when you take a team that is so well-oiled to lead out a sprinter like Milan (who won three sprints later during this UAE Tour), and they hold it all together at that very finish there, drilling it on the front, and Isaac has to go against Milan… It could’ve possibly changed the result.”
A gifted victory
“At least three, four gifts so far by three stages have been given to Isaac Del Toro,” Horner states. “First Johnny Milan (crashing), then Remco Evenepoel blowing up when he already has a 30-second gap on Del Toro.”
“Nothing about this stage was luck,” Horner nods in satisfaction. “This stage was magnificently ran tactically by Del Toro. And I want to bring that up because that’s what we have seen change in his arsenal of tricks – that he’s getting better and better tactically too.” Definitely a lesson learned from his Giro d’Italia heartbreak last year.
Del Toro needs to show us a whole lot more to be in the consideration
“When it’s all said and done, he wins by 20 seconds on Tiberi, and that is too close of a margin to start talking about a rider being first-page.”
“But you can’t be a first-page rider because you won UAE Tour under those circumstances,” Horner continues, “and you can’t be a first-page rider when we take a look at the most important thing about the UAE Tour; there’s two other races going on in Europe. During that same week of racing, we know Algarve (with Seixas, Ayuso and Almeida) is going on, and we know Ruta Del Sol (with Pidcock) is going on.
“So sometimes, you can’t look at a result and just say, ‘Wow, he dropped Remco Evenepoel’. Realistically, Isaac Del Toro didn’t even drop Remco. In fact, Felix Gall did. And about 16, 17 other riders did on stage three. So that tells you what? That tells you Remco was not up to his best. So Isaac Del Toro is beating a first-page rider in the name of Remco Evenepoel, but not on first-page form,” Horner concludes.