“I think this is the hardest climb in the world – it’s crazy. I’m glad it’s over,” an exhausted, panting João Almeida exclaimed. It is: the Angliru is truly barbaric, a horrible, nasty climb of incessant inhumane gradients. But Almeida tamed it, conquered it. From the moment the road started pointing skyward at impossible angles on stage 13 of the Vuelta a España, Almeida was there, at the very front, pushing, pulling, gurning – but always in control. One by one riders dropped off: Tom Pidcock, Giulio Pellizzari, Felix Gall, Sepp Kuss, Jai Hindley. But never Jonas Vingegaard.
In Almeida’s wheel the whole duration, the Dane, with his forever poker face, sat tight, didn’t do a pull, and let Almeida set the pace. Almeida kept trying to dislodge the race leader with changes in speed – nothing drastic, from 13kph to 14kph, because violent accelerations are an impossibility on the Angliru – but Vingegaard stayed put. “I was waiting for his attack at any time,” Almeida reflected. But it didn’t come. Vingegaard couldn’t attack. He, too, was on the limit. At least for Almeida he was not beaten in a finish-line sprint as he had feared, and his name goes into cycling folklore as a winner on the beautiful but wicked Angliru.
And all this after the drama he’s had to put up with and attempt to block out. Two weeks of wins for UAE Team Emirates-XRG – this was their sixth – but he’s questioned the commitment of his team to his GC cause. On stage nine, which Vingegaard won with a cushion of 24 seconds to Almeida, the Portuguese publicly lamented the lack of support from the likes of Jay Vine and Juan Ayuso, teammates who’ve now won two stages each for themselves.
Victory was Almeida's second stage success in a Grand Tour – but could a bigger prize of GC glory be awaiting him? (Image: ASO)
On the Angliru, Almeida didn’t have Ayuso – he was dropped at the bottom of the penultimate climb – but he did have Vine, and did have unsung hero Felix Großschartner. This time, when it mattered most, most of UAE rallied around Almeida. “Thanks to my teammates – they were key today, and did an amazing stage,” Almeida smiled. See what can happen when they support their GC leader? You get rewarded. The inter-team tension was – is? – real, and that doesn’t tend to be conducive to performance, but Almeida has shown his mental fortitude in rising above the squabbling. He knows that he can do a lot of it on his own.
Winning atop the Angliru earned Almeida four more bonus seconds than Vingegaard, meaning he has cut his deficit to his rival to 46 seconds. He still has some way to go to overtake him, but this performance was the confirmation that Vingegaard is not going to coast to victory in the Vuelta. He was and is the outstanding favourite, but any such thoughts that it would be a doddle for him to win have now been abandoned: Almeida is going to push him all the way.
Tomorrow, stage 14, he’ll try again on the Farrapona. And if that doesn’t work, he’ll keep try another day – this is a Vuelta with plenty of opportunities. If Vingegaard didn’t know it before, he knows it now: he’s going to have to fight all the way to Madrid to win this Vuelta a España. Any slip up and Almeida, in the form of his life, will pounce. We’ve got a captivating GC fight on our hands. “I still have a lot of time to make up to Jonas who is looking phenomenal, so it’s going to be a hard task,” Almeida acknowledged. “But we never give up.”
Cover image: Zac Williams/SWpix.com
