João Almeida was on familiar terrain on stage 17 of the Giro d’Italia, which brought the gruppo through Treviso on its flat run to the finish in Caorle. As a teenager, the Portuguese rider spent a season there with local squad Unieuro Trevigiani, a key waystation on his road to the WorldTour.
Almeida’s position at this stage of the Giro, too, is a familiar one. Like in 2020, when he carried the maglia rosa for two weeks, he reaches the final days of this edition nursing genuine ambitions of winning the race outright. He enters the troika of decisive stages second overall, just 18 seconds behind Geraint Thomas (Ineos) and 11 ahead of Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma).
Less familiar, however, is the aggression Almeida has shown to get to this point. A consistent rider blessed with a reliable diesel engine – a ‘passista scalatore,’ in the words of his old Trevigiani manager Marco Milesi when he joined the team as an 18-year-old – Almeida has typically ridden defensively in the high mountains, content to track the accelerations of others.
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That wariness seemed to disappear, however, on Monte Bondone on stage 16, where Almeida set his UAE Team Emirates squad to work midway up the climb before delivering the stage-winning attack with a shade under 6km to go. Only Thomas could follow, and together, they put 25 seconds into Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma). The man with a reputation for caution had just produced the most telling attack of the Giro to date. The complexion of the days ahead suddenly feels a little different.
“Yesterday, we saw there was a stretch of 5km at almost 9%, starting with about 9.5km to go. If you wanted to make the difference, that was the place,” UAE Team Emirates directeur sportif Fabio Baldato told Cyclingnews in Caorle.
“If you left it until to the last 4km, which is where Thomas chased after him, then the climb was more rideable. Thomas came back to him there using a big gear, but João made the difference where it was steeper. With his lighter weight, he was able to do it.”
UAE Team Emirates had signalled their intentions by setting the tempo from midway up Monte Bondone, with Davide Formolo and Jay Vine teeing up Almeida’s acceleration on the steepest portion of the ascent. The rough outline of the plan had been sketched beforehand, but its final execution was left to Almeida’s judgement. He had the option to call an…
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