"Almeida might have dropped Vingegaard" - Zonneveld criticial of UAE's hesitation in using whole team for GC goal

João Almeida and Jonas Vingegaard have gone head to head at La Farrapona but only showed their true legs in a final sprint where Vingegaard was the strongest and took two bonus seconds on the Portuguese. Into the final week there will only be a small gap separating the two, and Thijs Zonneveld argues that this exists because of UAE Team Emirates - XRG's lack of full focus on Almeida.

"I do think Soler is a better teammate than Ayuso, I don't want to tar him with the same brush. But this is vintage UAE. 'We're not going to join the breakaway,' they said. And then having two riders in the breakaway, and then riding all out for the stage win," Zonneveld said in the Het Wiel podcast.

Stage 14 was another day in the mountains and another stage for UAE to take. Thus far every single mountain stage except for Valdezcaray has been won by UAE riders, but on that one stage Jonas Vingegaard was able to take most of his time on Almeida. After the Angliru, the Dutch pundit argues that Almeida is stronger than Vingegaard.

"If you saw how Vingegaard was suffering in the last two kilometers, and how much trouble he had sprinting around Almeida in that headwind, this would have been a day where Almeida might have dropped Vingegaard."

"They haven't used that entire train for Almeida once, and I think he needs it. And when I see him these last two days, I honestly think he might even be better on the long efforts than Vingegaard. So they didn't fully capitalize on those opportunities, especially not today," he argues, although the headwind made a difference in the finale without a doubt.

He believes that fatigue may play a key role in this race and UAE should make the race as hard as possible consistently. "Vingegaard doesn't have the freshness, nor the fitness. That's understandable, because he rode the Tour, and that was a terribly tough Tour, after which even the best cyclist in the world said: 'I don't feel like racing for a while.' Vingegaard went home for a while and went straight to the Vuelta, while Almeida was able to prepare at altitude".

"He needs to use the tactic Vingegaard used against Pogacar: demolish and let it come down to the climbs. That's what UAE is doing more and more, but they don't do it with everyone," he adds.

"So far, it's cost them the Vuelta, you can put it that simply. And Almeida would have lost three-quarters of his time if his team—and he himself—had paid more attention. It's a close call, these two guys."