It wouldn’t have mattered what UAE Team Emirates-XRG tried on the penultimate stage of the Vuelta a España. The team paced for much of the day to make the day attritional to try and isolate, weaken and potentially wrestle the red jersey from the shoulders of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).
Their tactic suited their leader João Almeida’s riding style. He is not a rider who likes explosive efforts. Instead he keeps a metronomic tempo that suffocates his opponents. It worked well on the fearsome slopes of the Alto de L’Angliru, where Almeida managed to drop everyone bar Vingegaard to take an impressive stage win. So who knows, maybe on the similarly steep ramps to the Bola del Mundo, the final chance to shake up the general classification, he could do the same?
His prospects were enhanced when he was aided by a unified UAE Team Emirates-XRG, so often seemingly riding as individuals during this Grand Tour, hunting stage wins (which they have amassed seven of) rather than pacing for their Portuguese rider’s red jersey bid. So with Juan Ayuso in the breakaway as a satellite rider, and Jay Vine to pace the final climb, fans from across the border to the west of the Iberian Peninsula might have been beginning to believe they could be about to have their first Grand Tour winner.
However, unfortunately, on the steep slopes of the Bola del Mundo, Almeida didn’t have the legs. “I was on the limit for the whole stage,” smiled the UAE rider, “But we had to try — we had nothing to lose. That’s it. The idea was to do the stage as fast as we could. Unfortunately, I have been sick this week so the feeling was not the best, but we still tried. I think that’s what matters.”
UAE Team Emirates-XRG rode on the front for much of the day on stage 20 (Image: Unipublic)
Not that Almeida or UAE would have known during the stage, but what won’t have helped is that Vingegaard also admitted he felt better on the summit finish of Bola del Mundo climb than the Vuelta’s previous mountain-top finales. He attacked with just over a kilometre left to race and rode alone to the finish in dominant fashion. He might not have been at his career-best level at this race, but when Vingegaard says he feels good it usually means everyone else is in a dangerous situation.
Almeida, graciously admitted while chuckling that it was “hard” to see Vingegaard attacking in the final 1.2km of the climb. “I was already on my limit, I didn’t feel super good, but I still tried. Chapeau to him, he was the best rider today.”
For the whole Vuelta, it has been about these two riders. Their daily skirmishes have kept us in suspense about the destination of the red jersey. This was partly down to the opposing tactics of their respective teams: Visma clearly put all their weight behind their leader’s general classification bid, while UAE played a very different game, allowing their key climbers (Vine, Ayuso and Marc Soler) to go into breaks — often not as satellite riders but rather stage hunters. Today was different, with an obvious concerted effort behind Almeida’s challenge. But could UAE have done anything differently for Almeida’s red jersey bid earlier in the race?
Yes, if he had mountain support he would have had a better chance of beating Vingegaard. More support never does any harm. But at the same time, none of Ayuso, Vine or Soler seemingly had the legs to hold on deeper into the summit finish stages with the main overall contenders (like Sepp Kuss for Vingegaard and Giulio Pellizzari for Jai Hindley). So if they were to use those riders in an aggressive way to launch a move, it would have always been to set up Almeida as the initial attacker on each summit finish (like on the Angliru). Riding away from your competitors with 8-10km to go on a climb is still only in the realm of possibility for riders like Tadej Pogačar and Vingegaard himself. It would have been as simple as getting Jhonatan Narváez to do a nuclear launch for Pogačar on stage 12 of this year’s Tour de France. Ultimately Almeida wasn’t ever able to drop Vingegaard at any point, even on the Angliru where he was the strongest. No number of teammates would have changed this.
However, where they probably could have been useful was in limiting Almeida’s losses on the rare occasions he was caught behind, like on stage nine where Vingegaard launched a surprise move. Almeida lost 24 seconds on the road that day, the most he lost to the Dane all race on a single stage. And with more help it could have been cut down. Even stage 20, despite not being able to keep with the pace of the red jersey, he only lost 22 seconds on the road. In the end Almeida just wasn’t the best rider in the race. But he wasn’t far off.
And make no mistake, they didn’t win the Vuelta and at times their tactics seemed odd, but it has been a very successful race for UAE despite this. They were not the favourites for the overall title, so to come second best has to be considered a good result. Almeida himself seems content, saying, “It was a respectful fight, always keeping it surprising every day. I really tried, but it was not possible to beat him.” As always the UAE leader has the utmost respect for the rider who will ride into Madrid with the maillot rojo on his back, “Congrats to Jonas. He was super strong and I think it’s not too bad being behind him.”
