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 sixth 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 sixth overall, was not of concern to QuickStep-AlphaVinyl, but the Astana-Qazaqstan squad of Miguel Angel 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 Belgian.
“Basically, for the last 100km, I was going full gas all the time,” he said. “It was really hard, so let’s hope I’m good tomorrow.”
Ayuso was briefly caught on the wrong side of a split in the red jersey group amid the flurry of attacks on the final climb, but he looked increasingly assured as the ascent drew on, carefully marking the dangerman López in the closing kilometres.
The 19-year-old remains third overall, 5:14 behind Evenepoel and 42 seconds ahead López, who moved ahead of Rodríguez in the standings.
“I think Evenepoel is the strongest rider now and so if nothing happens, he’ll probably win the race. Now being realistic I have to think of defending my podium position,” said Ayuso. “Miguel Angel really tried me out, he really put some pressure on me. I’m happy I could hold his wheel and not lose time.”
Ayuso compatriot and contemporary Rodríguez was a crash victim early in the stage and although he remounted and continued, his struggles were already evident on the first ascent of the Alto del Piornal. He would ship over a minute on the final climb to drop to fifth overall.
“I think after such a hard crash, to be able to continue and be so close to us shows how much class he has,” said Ayuso
