Volta ao Algarve 2025 - Analysing the contenders

Probably the one thing to regret about this year's Volta ao Algarve is that it is only five days long and not only because of the sunshine and laid-back atmosphere that predominate along the coastal towns and villages of Portugal's 'Deep South' at this time of year. When it comes to the race, there are almost too many interesting and unpredictable plotlines to follow in this year's edition.

Even without 2019 Algarve winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) in the field, this year's edition is by far the most 'stacked' of all the early season stage races. Next week, a host of Spring Classics stars will be frantically honing their final form for fast-approaching Opening Weekend, rubbing shoulders as they do so with top GC contenders like double Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard and 2018 Tour champion Geraint Thomas.

Dig just a little deeper and you'll find a host of leading time trial specialists, breakaway artists and sprinters. Last but not least, when it comes to Portugal's top events and its longstanding home racing scene, Algarve is second only in importance to the national tour in August, which always adds yet another interesting ingredient to the mix - and occasionally, like in 2021, the outright winner.

So Classics fans will be keeping a close on the performances of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad contenders of the calibre of Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), defending champion Jan Tratnik (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek) and up-and-coming Arnaud de Lie (Lotto). For all of them, Algarve is their final warm-up race prior to Opening Weekend and for all its lack of cobbled climbs, its exceptionally varied terrain makes Algarve a very reliable form guide. Witness Tratnik's third place overall last year before going on to win six days later in Belgium.

At the same time, the presence of a double Tour de France champion like Vingegaard will cause heads to swivel in a different direction. Making his debut in Algarve, Vingegaard traditionally likes to hit the ground running in his first test of the season. Regardless of how he fares, in a year where his biggest goal is to put no less a figure than Tadej Pogačar to the sword in the Tour de France, every opportunity to see how Vingegaard is progressing towards the summer will be keenly scrutinized.

While Algarve will offer an intriguing parallel pathway to Pogačar's 2025 debut in the UAE Tour, held in the same week, Vingegaard will face another tough Slovenian challenger in Portugal as well: Primož Roglič.

Roglič's presence in a race he won back in 2017 represents a much deeper challenge for the field that Vingegaard faced in his first event of 2024, O Gran Camiño, on the opposite side of the Iberian peninsula in Galicia. On top of that, other talented stage racers like Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek), Romain Bardet (Picnic-PostNL) and João Almeida - fighting on home soil for UAE Team Emirates - will provide yet more points of reference.

With such a solid line-up, it's hard to believe at least three previously key players will be missing from the Algarve this year. Three-times winner and defending champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) is still recovering from his injuries, while Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) is racing instead in the Vuelta a Andalucia, which runs concurrently just over the border in Spain. The 2023 Algarve winner and 2024 Giro d'Italia runner-up Dani Martinez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) is as yet not confirmed to start, either.

Quite apart from the vacuum created by Evenepoel's absence, the 2025 Volta ao Algarve route itself has three key changes, of increasing potential significance. Stage 2's traditional ascent to the Foía summit finish uses a much tougher northerly approach road, with segments ranging between 11% and 15%. Stage 4 is described by the race organisers as 'the great unknown' and has three late classified climbs on exposed roads, the last a category 4, the Bordeira, with 17 kilometres to go. Stage 5 then incorporates the traditional last summit finish on the Alto do Malhão into a 19-kilometre uphill time trial, a speciality that has never before featured in the Volta ao Algarve.

Here, then, is Cyclingnews' take on some of the top favourites to follow in this year's Volta ao Algarve - which may only be five days long, but there are plenty of opportunities, and protagonists, for a lot to happen in a very short time.

Jonas Vingegaard

Given Jonas Vingegaard has already said he'll be doing the Vuelta a España as well as the Tour de France, the question of how he will handle his early season is a tough one to answer. Will Vingegaard look to hit the ground running in the Algarve, like he has done in other seasons, or will he opt to take a gentler approach to the start of the year, given his last part of 2025 is so backloaded?

It's worth remembering that Algarve is a race he's never done before, too, so the Dane may be somewhat less at ease on roads that are sometimes criticised for being excessively narrow and technical, particularly on stage 1. In that case, teammates like Wout van Aert and Sepp Kuss - eighth last year - are obvious choices to take on GC responsibilities.

It's a fair bet that stage 2 and the grinding category 2 ascent to Foia will offer the first real sign of his 2025 form. Come what may, the Algarve certainly has enough tough terrain for Vingegaard to shine in the way he did so brilliantly in his previous first race of the season, O Gran Camiño, both in 2023 and 2024.

Primoz Roglic

Making his 2025 debut like Vingegaard, pre-season Primož Roglič has already said that he won't be looking to make a huge impact - ie, going for the overall win - in the Volta ao Algarve. But seeing how the leading contender for the 2025 Giro d'Italia fares in his first race of the season will still be a story to follow, particularly as Roglič will only then reappear in the Volta a Catalunya before going for a second win in three years in Italy's Grand Tour. And as there's reportedly no time trial in Catalunya this year, too, the Algarve will be the one opportunity to go through his paces against the clock before May 9 and the Giro start.

Rather than give too much credence to his off-season downplaying of expectations, the way Roglič handles the tough ascent to Foia will likely prove a much more reliable indication of his real options for the overall win. After all, Roglič's tendency to claim he's not in great form prior to giving the rest of the field an absolute hammering is a plotline that is so familiar by now it's become pro cycling's equivalent of the boy who cried 'wolf' - albeit in Roglič's case, one in bike rider's clothing.

Furthermore, for all it's a distant memory, Roglič has got previous in Algarve: in 2017 he kept his most serious GC challenger, double winner Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) at bay all the way up the Malhão on the final day. At the time, Roglič completed the race with what was the biggest stage racing victory in his fledgling palmares - but plenty more of those were to come. Could the 2025 Volta ao Algarve be the next?

Geraint Thomas

A quiet start for Geraint Thomas in his final season at the Santos Tour Down Under in Australia is followed by his only race in February, in Portugal. But while his back-to-back victories in Algarve in 2015 and 2016, as well as a runner's up spot in 2017, all date from a time when he was much more focussed on the Classics than the Grand Tours, Thomas track record nonetheless always make him a reference point in the five-day race.

Assuming the GC is off the program, Thomas' most likely opportunity for a major kick out will arguably come on the last day's time trial. But be it in breakaways or races against the clock, as the last season of one of the greats of recent years unfolds, the Ineos Grenadier leader is always going to be a name to watch.

Wout van Aert

Take your pick from seven-hour mammoth training rides in Mallorca last week, a stellar role in the Cyclo-Cross World Championships last month after his surprise late call-up, or a stunning stage win in the Algarve last year. There are always plenty of reasons never to rule out Wout van Aert from any event he does, even after his below-expectations ride in the Clásica Jaén, and this February in Portugal, he has both recent race history and current form on his side: a very potent combination.

With no Remco Evenepoel to eclipse him, it's likely that the small army of Belgian journalists that traditionally decamp to the Algarve will be putting Van Aert firmly in the spotlight this week. Omloop is barely two weeks away, for one thing, and this will also be a key opportunity to see if Van Aert's rollercoaster 2024 road season is now fully behind him.

Last year after his stunning late attack into Tavira at Algarve, Van Aert briefly threatened to upset the GC applecart for Evenepoel, and this year his opportunities to succeed his fellow Belgian in the race palmares are arguably even greater than in 2024. The final uphill time trial will be very much to his liking, and so, too, will be the attacking terrain into Faro on stage 4.

Much will depend, too, on how teammate Jonas Vingegaard is handling the racing. But if Van Aert is pushing for a top result in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, it might well be that Visma-Lease a Bike at least start Algarve with the idea of getting both their top racers on the final podium in Portugal. 

João Almeida

When Joao Almeida took part in the Vuelta a España in Portugal last year, no matter what the result turned out to be, his pleasure at being on home soil was palpable. And as Almeida pointed out, opportunities to race on home soil rarely occur for him and are even more motivating as a result.

This year, though, he'll have two opportunities in just over a week, first at the Figueira Champions Classic on Sunday 16 February and the Volta ao Algarve from February 19-23, and to judge by recent form, he'll surely be looking to shine in both of them.

Ninth in Algarve in 2020 and sixth in 2023, his only two participations to date, the one-day Portuguese Classic on Sunday will provide some further signs of Almeida's chances of becoming the first local rider to win Algarve - or indeed finish on the podium - since the now-suspended João Rodrigues upset the favourites' applecart in 2021. But it's in stage racing where Almeida really shines, and there, too, the omens already are good.

Briefly the leader in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and finally second overall last week, Almeida is clearly in excellent form and if he now manages to take on teammate Pogačar's key rival Vingegaard and try to beat him on home soil, long-term it would perhaps not be so important. But in terms of the psychological battle between the two top Tour de France squads, whilst teammate Antonio Morgado's victory in the Figuieras Classic makes him one key UAE option, an Almeida success story in Portugal would certainly carry its fair share of significance, too.

Julian Alaphilippe

Strange but true: In 11 years as a pro, Julian Alaphilippe has never raced in the Volta ao Algarve. But after switching squads from his only previous team of QuickStep to Tudor over the winter, at 32, Alaphilippe is heading into new terrain race-wise as well.

The question of what Alaphilippe can achieve in the Algarve is an interesting one. It's only his second race with Tudor after Figueiras the previous weekend, where he placed eighth, and both the Frenchman and his squad will still be getting used to racing together in Portugal. But when it comes to early season success, a win in the Faun Ardéche Classic in 2023 in France, as well as a raft of stage wins in the sadly defunct Vuelta a San Juan and Tour Colombia/Colombia Oro y Paz in January and February earlier in his career, all suggest the French allrounder is very adept at hitting a top gear almost as soon as racing starts.

So if interest was already high at the chance to see Alaphilippe in his new team colours for the first time this season in Portugal, for all the unfamiliarity of his team kit and the racing terrain, don't be surprised if Alaf' is already in the thick of the Algarve action, too.

Arnaud De Lie

When it comes to the Volta ao Algarve's form-guide for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Arnaud De Lie's performance may not come in for such intense scrutiny as compatriot Wout van Aert. But it won't be that far off, either.

The Lotto fastman's second place, despite a crash, in the 2023 Omloop aged just 20 was the kind of spectacular debut that could hardly fail to make waves. Not only that, after winning a stage in this year's blighted edition Étoile de Bessèges, the 2025 form is clearly there, too.

It could be argued though that, Bessèges, for reasons that are all too well-known, was not a full test of condition given its woefully depleted field, and the combination of sprinters and Classics specialists in the Algarve is certainly a much bigger challenge. But while stages 1, 3 and 4 are De Lie's key opportunities to add a second victory to his 2025 palmares, it's what it means in terms of Omloop that will be making most of the headlines back in Belgium.

Jan Tratnik

Last year Jan Tratnik was a leading outsider both at Algarve and Nieuwsblad, this February he will be doing anything but flying under the radar in both events. Third overall in the Algarve was already unexpected enough, but for the Slovenian veteran then to claim Nieuwsblad while Van Aert provided cover behind was an even more impressive achievement.

The question of what Tratnik can achieve in both races given he is no longer allowed so much room for manoeuvre is one that is hard to answer. That's particularly true as at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe he'll now enjoy full leader's status in Omloop.

After failing to finish Bessèges when his team pulled out over safety issues, Algarve should provide some much-needed key indications about his underlying form. It could even be that if he's strong enough, Roglič himself acts as team support for Tratnik in Portugal.

Biniam Girmay

The same but different: last year Intermarché-Wanty took the opening stage of the Volta ao Algarve in the bunch sprint, this year they'll be hoping for an identical result on the identical stage 1 route from Portimão westward to Lagos. However, the sprinter in question they'll be looking to do the job for them has changed - from Gerben Thijssen to Biniam Girmay.

Interestingly, Thijssen has switched over to the UAE Tour, while Girmay's Algarve participation, on the other hand, is now part of his build-up for Omloop the following weekend. At the same time, after his stunning series of stage victories in the Tour de France last year, Girmay's star is definitely on the rise, and it'll be intriguing to see how he fares against theoretically more in-form sprinters like Arnaud De Lie (Lotto) and Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep).

And if, in the process, he can repeat Intermarché-Wanty's success in last year's Algarve, that'd be a great way to get the ball rolling.