A rising tide lifts all boats – and the success of one cyclist can lift an entire nation. Cycling in Mexico is experiencing a new dawn after years of decline. A large part of that is down to the exploits of one man, Isaac del Toro, who has defied the odds to become one of the sport's greatest prospects and re-opened the eyes of a nation to a sport on two wheels.
Five years ago, Mexican cycling was in turmoil. After years of mismanagement, the UCI announced in 2021 that the country's cycling federation had been suspended due to malpractice in its governance and electoral processes. For almost half a decade, there was no official body tasked with developing the sport, there were no national championships, and prospects were grim for any young rider wanting to make it as a professional. More than anything, there was a sense of hopelessness in the air for a passionate and vibrant Mexican cycling community, who were disillusioned after years of scandal and hadn't seen a rider at the pinnacle of the sport for almost 30 years – since Grand Tour stage-winners Raúl Alcalá and Julio Alberto Pérez Cuapio conquered the mountains of Europe.
Then came El Torito. Del Toro's victory at the 2023 Tour de l'Avenir raised the expectations of a nation and was front page news, but it was the 2025 Giro d'Italia that propelled the boy from the pacific-coastal city of Ensenada to stardom in Mexico. Del Toro wore the famous Maglia Rosa for eleven days and became the first Mexican to win a Grand Tour stage in almost a quarter of a century, attacking from an elite group in the closing metres of stage 17 in Bormio. It was an heroic and dramatic three weeks as Del Toro unseated his team's elected leader over the sterrato of Tuscany on stage 9, suffered on the San Valentino climb of stage 16 and ultimately lost the Giro on a penultimate stage that will go down in the annals of cycling history to Sestriere. Despite ceding pink to Simon Yates, Del Toro had propelled himself from promising prospect to the very elite levels of the sport, and into the hearts and minds of the Mexican people.
Crowds gathered around the Ángel de la Independencia landmark in the centre of Mexico City to celebrate Del Toro's success following the Giro – an event usually withheld for the country's footballing heroes. The 22-year-old went on to take a staggering 18 UCI wins in 2025 and demanded a seat at the sport's top table. Later that year, Del Toro was handed the Premio Nacional del Deporte (Mexican Sportsperson of the Year) award in a glittering ceremony in Mexico City. Cycling in Mexico was revived, and with a new federation inaugurated at the end of 2025, a vision for a greater future was born.
Leading by example
"He's the most valuable asset that cycling has right now in Mexico. Everybody's watching his races. The TV stations are fighting for the rights to have the races aired. People are thinking about their kids being the next Mexican top rider. So definitely, what Isaac is doing, just by itself, it's just moving the whole community forward," says Bernardo de la Garza, the new President of the Union Ciclista de Mexico, which was ratified as the official Mexican cycling federation at the annual UCI Congress in Kigali last year.
De la Garza, a former politician and Mexican presidential candidate, is leading a new wave of growth in Mexican cycling, with plans to set the country of more than 130 million people on a path to becoming a major force in the sport. "It's a great responsibility for us because we have to take advantage of this opportunity that he's gifting all the cyclists and the authorities in Mexico. Everybody has this huge enthusiasm because he's so great. So we have to take advantage of that, definitely. I think in the future, more doors are going to be open and I think we already know about some names that we believe at the end of the year will also be in professional teams."
After more than a decade without a rider anywhere near the pinnacle of the sport – bar Luis Villalobos, who raced in the WorldTour with EF Education First in 2020 and 2021 before being banned for four years by the UCI due to an Adverse Analytical Finding – Mexico now has a raft of young talent that is emerging alongside Del Toro. Sprinter Cesar Macias signed for Spanish ProTeam Burgos-Burpellet-BH in 2026 and Romina Hinojosa is Mexico's sole rider in the women's professional peloton, riding her second season with Lotto-Intermarché Ladies. Said Cisneros is another exciting talent, having signed for Soudal Quick-Step's development team after racing to 17th place in the junior men's race at the 2025 Road World Championships in Kigali. And there are a host of hungry youngsters hot on their heels. "What we want to do is just facilitate talent," says De la Garza. "We're going to try to have a very active agenda in terms of the youth Mexican cyclists competing around the world."
An important and symbolic step in the nation's restoration was taken at the end of 2025 as the Union Ciclista de Mexico staged the first official Mexican national championships since 2021 in Del Toro's home-town of Ensenada, with the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider taking victory in both the road race and time trial to the delight of fans who had travelled from across the country to watch. What's more, the Union Ciclista de Mexico is drafting plans to revive the historic Vuelta a Mexico. The country's national tour has taken place in various guises over the years since it was first run in 1948, with former winners including the likes of Laurent Fignon and Oscar Sevilla. The race is set to relaunch on the UCI calendar in January, with plans to see it become one of North America's biggest cycling events in the coming seasons.
Del Toro's success is being felt at the grass-roots too, with local cycling clubs experiencing increases in membership over the last couple of years according to Jezer Said Colmenero Soto, who is a member of Club Ensenada MTB, a mountain biking club in Del Toro's home city on Mexico's west coast. "Ensenada was considered a cycling town, but as a result of this great phenomenon we Ensenadans are experiencing, more people have started cycling," Soto says. "There is a lot of motivation among young cyclists and new generations. Here in Ensenada, mountain biking and road cycling are popular, and there are many young people who could follow in Isaac del Toro's footsteps."
"I have no doubt [that more people are starting to cycle] and we already can see some results," says De la Garza. "We understand cycling is for all and that's something we want to pursue. We always talk about the high-level athletes first because it's what's in the media and especially now with Isaac del Toro who is an amazing athlete. We are always in the media because of him. But we can recognise that most cyclists are not high-level cyclists, they use their bikes to go to work, to spend time with family, use their bikes just to hang out with friends and we also want to extend our hand to those kinds of cyclists which are the highest in volume and who sometimes are forgotten because they are not in the media."
Who's next?
It's intriguing that at the time of Mexican cycling's lowest ebb, its greatest-ever rider arose. In the absence of a cycling federation, several independent teams took on the responsibility of guiding the country's young cyclists. Primary among those was A.R. Monex, the development team that identified and sculpted the talent of Del Toro, alongside Hinojosa, Cisneros and others. Alejandro Rodriguez founded the team alongside his two brothers. Rodriguez says that Del Toro is unlike any other talent he has seen in his lifetime. "I haven't seen anything like this before, like ever. The last one to do remarkable results was Raúl Alcalá… No one in Mexico has ever done it in the fashion that he's doing," Rodriguez says. "It's a great success for himself, but I think for Mexican cycling as well."
Alcalá was Mexico's star of the 80s and 90s, winning the young riders' classification at the Tour de France in 1987 and Tour stages in 1989 and 1990 along with several other significant victories as he competed with the 7-Eleven and PDM-Concorde teams. The only other Mexican rider to achieve similar heights was Julio Alberto Pérez Cuapio, who scaled the peaks of the Giro d'Italia in 2001 and 2002 to win three stages en route to taking the mountains jersey.
"It is a great thrill for me to see a Mexican in this magnificent sport once again, considering the years that have passed since I left European cycling," says Pérez Cuapio. "I have been impressed, for his qualities are very difficult to find in a Mexican." The 48-year-old, who is resident in Italy, works alongside Rodriguez at A.R. Monex overseeing the team's junior women's squad as the outfit searches for the next stars of Mexican cycling. "They have a great deal to learn – adapting to the climate, the language, the food, the group of athletes, and the different customs of the country," adding that Del Toro's success has had a "huge impact".
For Rodriguez, Del Toro is eclipsing Mexican titans Alcalá and Pérez Cuapio. He remembers Del Toro as a 15-year-old when he had just joined A.R. Monex. The talent was obvious. Del Toro was always a cut above the rest. "When they were riding, you could see that he had something extra, because the rest of the guys would be suffering and he would be doing wheelies, always just having fun. It was very noticeable how much he liked cycling, how much he liked this kind of high-performance lifestyle and how much he was very, very clear on what he wanted out of life and what he wanted out of himself… Where he got that talent, I don't know, it was just remarkable. He was in the top one per cent of what we've seen of physiological markers. He was just not able to show it in the race. So, it took a lot of time… years. But then, he won the Tour de l'Avenir."
Rodriguez had experienced life under the previous federation and said that the overwhelming feeling was one of relief when De la Garza's new entity was formed. "The best results that Mexico has had in recent history was in this period in which we didn't have any federation," he says. "When they were excluded from the UCI, I think that was a victory for Mexican cycling. The previous one was just… I don't like to say mafia, because that's a very loaded word, but it was just not working correctly. And you can tell because of the results, right? I mean, it's a federation, it's supposed to have a certain amount of penetration inside of cycling, not only in the field of results, but also in the field of development."
For Rodriguez, the removal of the previous administration has brought about a new freedom for Mexican cycling. Under new leadership, the shackles are off. Mexico's potential can be realised. "It looks good for Mexican cycling in the future," says Rodriguez. "We're very positive that in the future, a lot of youngsters will be interested in following the steps of Del Toro and wanting to be the next one."
