It was billed as round two between Jonas Vingegaard and João Almeida. Last time out, at last year’s Vuelta a España, the latter pushed the former a lot closer than many expected, only losing to him by just over a minute come the final. This time, at the Giro d’Italia, with Vingegaard having more than one eye on the Tour de France, the hope at least from a UAE Team Emirates-XRG perspective was that Almeida could go one better and deny Visma-Lease a Bike their second successive pink jersey. But nope. Not to be.
After placing second and third in his opening two stages of the season, Almeida disappointed at March’s Volta a Catalunya, finishing 38th overall. Vingegaard cruised to victory in what was previously seen as a dress rehearsal for the Giro. At the time, Almeida moaned: “I don’t feel very good on the bike at the moment. Maybe I need to rest, understand what’s going wrong with me. Maybe I need to do some tests and analyses.”
The Portuguese no doubt did those tests, and on April 14 decamped to Sierra Nevada in southern Spain to begin an altitude block ahead of the Giro. He was already on the backfoot, but this was a chance to make up ground before his next battle with Vingegaard. Yet Joxean Fernández Matxin, UAE team manager, told Rouleur that Almeida spent the vast majority of his time in his hotel room. “He was there until April 26 and he only trained two days,” Matxin said. “It didn’t go well – he couldn’t train.” As a result, UAE have pulled Almeida from competition and Vingegaard, in theory at least, has an easier path to victory. The Giro begins in Bulgaria on May 8.
“Sickness in the past months has affected my preparations too much and has meant I just won’t quite be ready in time which is a shame as it’s a race I love so much,” Almeida posted on Instagram. “After talking it through with the team we decided it was best to take a rest period and switch focus to new goals later in the season.”
“João obviously isn’t feeling good because the goal from the beginning of the season was to be at the Giro d’Italia in the best possible shape as our leader and he was really motivated,” Matxin added. “He’s had a virus and though he’s overcome it – he’s not positive anymore – he’s still got an infection. We took the decision a few days ago not to send him to the Giro because if he can only train twice in 12 days, he’s not going to have the necessary condition to compete. It’s a shame because with the 42km time trial [on stage 10] he really had a good chance, but it’s cycling – these circumstances happen.”
Almeida’s original season plan was for him to back the Giro up with a fifth appearance at the Vuelta, and Matxin confirmed that the 27-year-old is still set to compete in the third and final Grand Tour of the season. “The Vuelta’s on his calendar and we’ll 100% maintain that.” Depending on how his recovery goes, Almeida could make his return to racing at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (formerly known as Critérium du Dauphiné) in June. “It’s an idea we have, it could be his next goal, but we’ll have to wait,” Matxin commented. “We have to do tests and monitor how his health evolves.”
The absence of Almeida, Matxin conceded, gives Vingegaard a significant advantage as he aims to beat Tadej Pogačar to the feat of being the first of the duo to win all three Grand Tours. “It’s clear that Visma are the undisputable favourites,” Matxin said. “We’ll go for stages and look to be as high as possible in the GC, but it’s obvious Jonas Vingegaard is the favourite. I’m not saying anything that people don’t already know. Adam Yates, Ben O’Connor, Felix Gall and Giulio Pellizzari could all do well – Pellizzari especially I think – but we all expect Jonas to be in very good shape and he usually responds well to pressure.”
As mentioned, UAE have now switched their focus to winning stages and featuring in the GC battle with Yates and Jay Vine. In Jhonatan Narváez, Jan Christen, António Morgado and Igor Arrieta, UAE certainly have options to be successful in the race that they won with Pogačar in 2024 and were on the cusp of winning last year only for Adam’s twin brother, Simon, to memorably steal pink off Isaac Del Toro on the penultimate day.
“We’ve got a very motivated team, full of riders who are combative and ready to race well,” Matxin said. “We’re having to rebuild the team around Adam and Jay as we’re missing a really important rider in João, but we’ll approach the race like we have the Vuelta in the past: looking for stages. We go into every race wanting to be protagonists and this will be no different.” Could Adam emulate his now-retired sibling and keep the maglia rosa in the family, if not in the same team? “Hopefully,” Matxin smiles. “We’ll see.”
