João Almeida finished the day more or less where he started it, but the Portuguese rider was the key animator of a breathless day of racing on stage 18 of the Vuelta a España to the Alto del Piornal.
At one point, Almeida looked to be riding himself into podium contention after he attacked from the peloton with almost 100km remaining. By day’s end, he had been reeled in by the red jersey group, but it was still a successful outing for his UAE Team Emirates squad. Juan Ayuso tightened his hold on a podium place after Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos) lost ground, while Almeida remains 6th overall.
“Of course, the goal is to get the podium with Juan,” Almeida said. “He was feeling pretty good today, so I wanted to try from far away to put some pressure on Astana and the other teams because they want to keep their place or even fight for the podium with Juan. I was feeling good, so I attacked from far away.”
With a little under 100km to go and a break of 38 riders chugging along some eight minutes up the road, UAE Team Emirates decided to enliven proceedings with a determined bout of pace-setting at the head of the peloton.
Shortly afterwards, Almeida surged off the front with Brandon McNulty for company, and they set about opening a sizeable gap over the peloton. After McNulty swung off, Almeida’s teammate and compatriot Ivo Oliveira dropped back from the break to help him in his optimistic move over the Alto de la Desesperá and towards the first ascent of the Piornal.
Almeida, who began the day 6:51 off Remco Evenepoel in 6th overall, was not of concern to QuickStep-AlphaVinyl, but the Astana-Qazaqstan squad of Miguel Ángel López quickly realised that he was an immediate threat.
Despite their efforts, however, Almeida at one point opened an advantage of more than a minute and he put up dogged resistance over the first ascent of the Piornal where another teammate, Marc Soler, dropped back from the break to help him.
“The team did a perfect job, I think we were pretty good,” said Almeida. “Marc was really helping a lot, but of course he kept a little bit of gas to help Juan, because Juan is our priority right now. We want to keep the podium.”
Almeida was eventually pinned back by the red jersey group on the climb to the finish, but despite his efforts off the front, he managed to hang tough to the line, placing 10th on the stage, 13 seconds behind the winner Evenepoel. In the overall standings, Almeida remains 6th, albeit now 7:14 behind the…
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