Isaac del Toro ended his incredible 2025 season with a 16th victory at the Giro del Veneto on Wednesday.
The 21-year-old Mexican played down his status as a cycling 'super talent' when recently speaking to Cyclingnews but his 2025 results suggest otherwise and confirm he is already Tadej Pogačar's understudy at UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
Del Toro won the Tour de l'Avenir in 2023 and then won a stage and finished third in the Tour Down Under on his WorldTour debut in 2024.
His long run of success in 2025 began at the Giro d'Italia when he went on the attack on the gravel stage to Siena and took the race leader's maglia rosa. He kept all the way until stage 20, only losing it to Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) after a tactical stand-off with Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost).
He returned to racing in July, winning 14 races. He won seven Italian one-day races with apparent ease, during a two-month block of racing. He was also fifth in the time trial World Championships in Rwanda, seventh in the road race and fifth at Il Lombardia as he worked for Pogačar.
"It was crazy good," Del Toro said of his season. "I learnt a lot and for sure it's helped me develop."
"We made a plan with the team before the season, but after some problems at the start of the season, it seemed difficult to achieve. But then it was incredible and I improved so much," he told Cyclingnews during an exclusive interview.
"I'm privileged to be in this position. It's not normal and I'm super thankful to the team and all the people around me. I've always tried to be the best version of myself in the races and it worked out."
Del Toro's European season is officially over but he will 'race' again at the weekend.
He is one of the stars of the Critérium de La Nucía on the Spanish coast near Benidorm on Saturday, then on Sunday he will ride the new Andorra Cycling Masters, against Tadej Pogačar, Primož Roglič and Jonas Vingegaard. The event includes an 8km time trial up the Coll de la Gallina and then a 32km criterium in Andorra la Vella.
Del Toro is also expected to ride the Mexican national championships on home roads in Ensenada, on the Baja California peninsula. The races were moved to late October after the Mexican Cycling Federation was shaken-up and a UCI suspension for governance violations was officially ended at the World Championships in Rwanda.
He does not want to think about his goals for 2026 but with Juan Ayuso moving to Lidl-Trek and Pogačar expected to target a fifth Tour de France, Del Toro is likely to return to the Giro to try to win it.
Whatever his programme, Del Toro will not change. He seems able to take all the expectations with ease, modestly refusing the label of a super talent.
"I don't like to think that I'm a super talent. I want to believe that I work enough to be able to be up there," he told Cyclingnews.
"I think we have something inside us that makes us better. But maybe it's just mental and it's about trying to do as well as we can. I think mental strength is 80 per cent of the job. If you don't want to do something, you won't achieve it, that's for sure. I know I work a lot and want to do well."
