{"id":813153,"date":"2026-07-20T00:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T00:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/813153\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T00:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T00:29:08","slug":"del-toro-claims-he-crashed-on-purpose-to-save-pogacar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/813153\/","title":{"rendered":"Del Toro claims he crashed on purpose to save Poga\u010dar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isaac del Toro<\/a> can rightly be called the man of the day, if what he says about the crash involving him and Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> is true. The young Mexican rider from UAE Emirates-XRG crashed during Stage 15 of the Tour de France after Vingegaard slammed into a curb right in front of him. Del Toro claims it was a It was a deliberate crash, which prevented an even worse outcome for his team leader, Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a>.In addition to Vingegaard\u2019s hard fall, UAE Emirates-XRG was also involved in a crash after a roundabout. Felix Grossschartner crashed into Vingegaard, and Del Toro then also plunged into the crowd. The Mexican was riding behind Pogacar in the peloton and said in a flash interview<\/a> that he had to decide quickly whether to avoid the crash or not.<\/p>\n

“It was a tricky roundabout; the signage wasn’t very clear, and the first Visma riders might not have taken the best line,” Del Toro said afterward. Since UAE was right behind Visma | Lease a Bike as a group, the team was affected when Vingegaard crashed. \u201cI had to choose between crashing myself or hitting Tadej, so I chose to crash myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Del Toro, his fall wasn\u2019t very hard. He quickly rejoined the race with Grossschartner, before Pogacar and Del Toro finished second and third in the stage results behind Remco Evenepoel. \u201cI did feel some pain in my back and left leg once I got my rhythm back. We stuck to the plan as a team, though\u2014but I was in pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the video<\/p>\n

Del Toro thanks Poga\u010dar for his work at the front on the final climb<\/p>\n

Pogacar ended up leading the entire final climb, pulling Del Toro along with him. The Slovenian also let the Mexican go for it, but his two attacks weren\u2019t enough to shake off Evenepoel. \u201cI may have made a few mistakes in the final stretch, but I\u2019m happy with how the day went. We should have done a little better in the final stretch; then everything would have been perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Del Toro focused on making up time and climbed to third place in the general classification. This means UAE could win the Tour with Pogacar and finish on the podium with Del Toro\u2014and perhaps also take the white youth jersey.<\/a> \u201cThe podium is a possibility. We\u2019ll keep working toward it and see how the upcoming stages play out.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the mixed zone, Del Toro commented on Vingegaard\u2019s withdrawal: \u201cIt\u2019s emotional; hopefully he\u2019ll be back soon. It\u2019s really a shame, because Jonas is a great rider and a true champion. It\u2019s always a shame when something like this happens to a rider like him. Hopefully it\u2019s nothing serious, because he was clearly in a lot of pain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isaac del Toro can rightly be called the man of the day, if what he says about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,42476,5900,82,1422,262636],"class_list":["post-813153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-isaac-del-toro","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-de-france-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}