Del Toro Chases a Third WorldTour Stage-Race Title of 2026 at Itzulia
While the cycling world was fixated on the cobbles of Oudenaarde on Easter Sunday, another storyline was quietly building in the Basque Country. Isaac del Toro arrives at the start of Monday's Itzulia Basque Country with the chance to claim a third WorldTour stage-race overall title before April is even out — and the numbers behind his early-season form make him the outright favourite in a stacked field.
The 22-year-old Mexican has already stood on the top step at two one-week WorldTour stage races in 2026, and has carried that momentum into a spring calendar that many assumed would belong to the European old guard. Now, with Tadej Pogačar absent and focused exclusively on Paris-Roubaix, Del Toro is the clear UAE Team Emirates-XRG standard-bearer in a race that has a habit of exposing any weakness.
"I feel like the rider I thought I could become," Del Toro told reporters at UAE's pre-race press meeting in Bilbao. "Two stage races this year is already more than I planned. But we are here to race, not to celebrate. This is the Basque Country — you cannot hide here. If the legs are good, you try. If not, you survive."
Survival will be the operative word for plenty of riders. The 2026 Itzulia parcours, which kicked off on Sunday with a short, twisty opening time trial in Bilbao, packs more than 11,000 metres of climbing into its six stages, with summit finishes on three of them and a brutal final-day loop around Eibar that has decided several recent editions. The opposition reads like a GC hitlist: Primož Roglič, back in Basque colours with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe after his stage one ride, Juan Ayuso in his first Itzulia in Lidl-Trek colours, plus Enric Mas, Carlos Rodriguez and a rejuvenated Mikel Landa on home roads.
What sets Del Toro apart, though, is the consistency. Across his two 2026 stage-race wins he has finished inside the top five on every single summit finish, and his time-trialling has improved to the point where he no longer leaks the chunks of time that plagued his breakthrough season. The data UAE released last month suggested a 6% power-to-weight gain over the winter — a jump that team insiders privately describe as "the difference between a very good stage-racer and a Grand Tour contender."
A victory at the Itzulia would also serve as a statement ahead of his planned Giro d'Italia debut in a month's time, where UAE are expected to co-lead him alongside Ayuso before he sidesteps into a Tour de France support role for Pogačar in July. Landing a Basque crown against this field would make him almost impossible to write off as a genuine Grand Tour threat this summer.
Roglič, for his part, is under no illusions about the task facing him. "Isaac is the rider of 2026 so far," the Slovenian said on Sunday evening. "If I want to win this race I have to be perfect. One bad day and it is finished. That is how it works here."
The fight for overall victory begins in earnest on Tuesday when the first summit finish of the week looms above Amurrio. By Saturday evening in Eibar we will know whether 2026 truly does belong to Del Toro — or whether the Basque roads have, once again, written a different story.