Del Toro, the First Mexican in Pink at the Giro

A small detail changes everything, an excessive ambition turns the Giro around. There are 51.2 kilometers to the finish line, the peloton of favorites is about to catch the two leading men, Hermans and Groves, who already hear the crunch of gravel behind them, in the middle of the dusty road, sticking to the tires and brake discs; forcing them to ride with their mouths closed. They are cycling through Serravalle, the second stretch of dry dirt and gravel, with Pello Bilbao regulating Tiberi's pace. It doesn't seem like a dangerous place. There's a left turn and the start of a descent when Hamilton, on the right, at the front of the group, hits a bump, falls, and drags Roglic, Pidcock, and a few others. Ayuso brakes and has to accelerate again, and by then a small gap has opened. No one will be able to close it.

And it's provoked by the ambition of the Mexican Isaac del Toro, 21 years old, who accelerates like a madman when he finds that opportunity. He thinks of no one and nothing; he doesn't listen to the voices in his earpiece. The sharpest follow him: Van Aert and three Ineos riders, including Egan Bernal, who seems like a different person after years of absence, and also his friend from Zipaquirá, Brandon Smith Rivera Vargas, of the same generation. They have been racing together since they were children, they know each other. They are accomplices, along with Arensman, of the commotion that begins to mount when the cyclists' faces start to receive the ochre makeup of the dust that rises.

Because Del Toro, with the audacity and ambition of youth, has not waited for anyone, not even his teammate Ayuso; less so, of course, for Roglic, entangled in his doubts after the fall and a subsequent puncture that makes him lose even more time. Bernal is also ambitious, and he spends the energies of his teammates and his own trying to forge a path alongside Del Toro and that bloodhound who sniffs out opportunities like no one else, Van Aert, in search of the fiftieth victory of his professional career. The Colombian is too generous, and while Ayuso, behind, wears himself out to distance Roglic and then, in a larger group with McNulty and Yates, his teammates, begins to regulate his forces, he does not.

Bernal feels like a new cyclist, liberated from the fears and limitations of that brutal crash against a truck in his country; from the fall on the descent of Miraflores in San Sebastián, in front of the Arzak restaurant, where he broke his jaw, from the subsequent inconveniences, the unwanted sequelae, and also from the collarbone fracture he suffered in February, precisely on a dirt stretch among the olive trees of Jaén.

The brave Bernal takes the lead, accelerates, and expends energy, perhaps from where he doesn't have it yet, although his champion character emerges, so when he can no longer, he yields to Van Aert and, above all, Del Toro. Behind, Ayuso maintains the distances, while Roglic tries to resist and partly succeeds. Desperate, almost without help, he rolls up his sleeves to work and minimize the damage, mishap after mishap, to lose as little time as possible, but Del Toro is an unleashed force, who on the wall of Santa Catalina tries to leave Van Aert, who suffers but holds on, gets ahead, and in the last curve, the one leading to the Piazza del Campo, the stage of the Palio of Siena, takes a risk and leaves the marks of the tubular on the fence protection to get ahead and win the stage.

But Del Toro's prize is not a consolation one, far from it. He is the new leader, the first Mexican in history to wear pink. "It's great to be the first from my country to wear it. I didn't know what to expect from the dirt, I just focused on doing my best and it's incredible what I achieved." 21 years old, another phenomenon of the new generation of young cyclists who a decade ago wouldn't even have debuted as professionals. "Del Toro did an extraordinary race," confesses Van Aert. "I was disappointed not to be able to fully cooperate with him, but he is also a rival of my teammate Simon Yates in the general classification." The Mexican understood: "I knew Van Aert had Yates behind and it would be difficult to get his cooperation, but I understand and I don't complain, that's cycling." This Monday, the second rest day.