Hat-trick hero – Giro d'Italia revelation Isaac del Toro takes three wins in three days at the Tour of Austria

The main focus of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and, of course, the cycling world, may be on the Tour de France this July, but over in Austria, their rising star Isaac del Toro has made a winning return to racing this week.

21-year-old Del Toro was last seen in action at the Giro d'Italia, where a race debut largely spent in the maglia rosa ended up with him dropping to second behind Simon Yates on the final day.

The Mexican is already a stage racing force to be reckoned with, and he's proving that at the lower-ranked Tour of Austria, where he and UAE have totally dominated the race so far.

Through four stages, they've won all four, with Del Toro on course for overall victory after racking up three stage wins in three days.

Felix Großschartner headed up a UAE 1-2-4-5 on the opening day in Steyr, before Del Toro beat Andrew August (Ineos Grenadiers) on the uphill finish at St. Johann Alpendorf on stage 2.

Friday's third stage saw Del Toro lead home August once more, this time by five seconds atop the 7.5km, 8% climb to Gaisberg. He completed his hat trick on the penultimate stage earlier on Saturday, taking the win over Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost) after a monster climb to Kühtai.

Del Toro heads up the general classification after four days of racing with a 29-second advantage over Ryan, while UAE teammate Rafał Majka is the only other man within a minute of the lead, 47 seconds down in third.

"I feel quite good, honestly. To be back here with the team, with the guys, the atmosphere is super nice, and I am still dreaming," Del Toro said after stage 2.

Two days later, he had scored UAE's 61st win of the season, following on from Pogačar scoring the team's 60th up the Mûr-de-Bretagne earlier in the day.

The team has now racked up almost double the wins of the second-placed team in the season rankings. Lidl-Trek lie second on 33, while Soudal-QuickStep are third on 26 victories.

"Felix did not have the best feeling in the final of the second-to-last climb, so we tried to be with him a little bit," Del Toro said after stage win number three. "But in the end, the climb just kept getting steeper, and we managed to have more control over the race, and put more pressure on the other teams by making it even harder. We made them more tired.

“It’s a shame because I really wanted to see Felix do it, but everybody can have a bad day. At the end, we can make it with the team, and I'm proud of the win.

“It’s nice to be in this position, and for sure we will try to enjoy this.