An insight into João Almeida's season - From Pogacar's luxury domestique at Tour de France to World Tour stage winner

The 2024 season is over for João Almeida. It was a year with a different calendar to the one he had adopted in previous years, as the UAE Team Emirates rider wanted to race the Tour de France and so his entire preparation would change. He would take part in different races, face opponents who didn't usually follow the same schedule, in short, it would be a challenging season for the Portuguese athlete.

So unlike 2023 where he started his season with three one-day races (Trofeo Andratx, Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana and Trofeo Palma) before heading to the Volta ao Algarve where he finished 6th overall, 2024 began at Paris-Nice with an 11th place. This was followed by a top-10 finish in the Volta a Catalunya (9th) where he supported Tadej Pogacar for overall victory, and in April he took on the Amstel Gold Race (38th), La Flèche Wallogne and the Liège-Bastogne-Liège (29th), as analysed together with CiclismoAtual.

This was followed by weeks of work and training at altitude with his team to prepare, fulfilling a specific training plan for the Tour de France, where he would make his debut and work towards the team's and Tadej Pogacar's main goal of the season. He left the altitude camp straight for the Tour de Suisse where he showed up in great physical shape, where together with his teammate Adam Yates, they dominated the Helvetian race from start to finish, showing overwhelming strength and giving their most direct rivals no chance.

In Switzerland, João Almeida won two stages and finished second in the overall classification behind only teammate Adam Yates. João Almeida ended up winning the time trial, but would only take 9 seconds off the deficit he had over Yates, finishing the race in 2nd place in the General Classification, 22 seconds behind the Briton.

The Tour de France followed, with Tadej Pogacar as leader, João Almeida proved to be a faithful domestique for the Slovenian, giving everything he had during the three weeks of the race in favor of his leader. However, on stage 4 of the race between Pinerolo and Valloire he was one of the riders who put in strong work for Pogacar to later make the difference.

There Almeida gestured to Ayuso, showing his dissatisfaction, and Pogacar even looked back to see where his teammate was. Yates had to get to work to keep the team's plan on track and Pogacar attacked to win the stage. In the end, Ayuso, who had been at the back of the group and had done nothing for the team, finished 3rd in the stage. In the aftermath of the stage, Yates didn't hold back and had harsh words for the Spanish rider's commitment, saying that "I had to go in early to work because someone wasn't in his position", contradicting the version Joxean Matxin said at the time.

João Almeida didn't win any stages in the Tour de France, but he finished 7 stages in the Top-10, which earned him 4th place in the final general classification in Nice. A debut in the Grand Boucle that left very good impressions, apart from his final result. This was followed by a period of rest and training at altitude to lead the UAE team at the Vuelta a España.

João Almeida led UAE at the Vuelta a España

Expectations were at an all-time high, Almeida was a strong contender for victory in Madrid and had an extra boost as the Gran Salida of the race was in the city of Lisbon. Almeida started the Vuelta with a consistent time trial and despite the 10th place obtained in his individual effort, of the men considered candidates for victory in the general classification he only had one man ahead of him, Primoz Roglic at 3 seconds.

The first big test of the Vuelta comes on stage 4, with the ascent of Pico Villuercas. João Almeida arrived with the main group and ended the day in 3rd place. On the 6th day of racing, UAE Team Emirates, like all their rivals, were surprised by an attack from Ben O'Connor, who went on to win the stage and lead the race by a fairly comfortable margin over his direct rivals. There was a lot of work to be done, but Madrid was still a long way off.

But the race would end three days later for him. On the stage to the top of Cazorla, João was often seen at the back of the peloton. Something wasn't right and on the final climb he was one of the first men to break away from the peloton. He arrived at the finish line 4:53 minutes after stage winner Primoz Roglic. The news that nobody wanted to read or hear dropped like a bombshell: João Almeida wouldn't start the 9th stage because he was ill with Covid-19. The dream of fighting for victory in a Grand Tour was over.

After recovering from his illness, João Almeida returned to training to prepare for the end of the season and was called up by the national coach to represent Portugal at the World Championships in Zurich. Among the cream of the crop of time trialists, the man from Caldas da Rainha took the opportunity to put in a reasonable individual effort for someone who hadn't competed for over a month. All hopes were pinned on a good result in the road race, but unfortunately a fall took away another good chance of racing for a good result.

This was João Almeida's third season with UAE Team Emirates. A season unlike any other in terms of the calendar, where he didn't defend his 3rd place in the 2023 Giro d'Italia and his 2nd places in Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour de Pologne. A season in which he covered 8722 km in 57 days of competition. Over the course of 2024, 2,144.57 UCI points, he won 3 stages, took 2nd place in the General Classification at the Tour de Suisse, where he came 2nd in the Points Classification and 3rd in the Mountain Classification, to which he added a remarkable 4th place in his debut in the Tour de France.