DISCUSSION Tour de Suisse Stage 4 | Is João Almeida the biggest favourite to win the GC again?

The fourth stage of the Tour de Suisse was a day in which significant differences among the GC men were expected. A fearsome climb in the second half of the stage, Splügenpass, was the ideal terrain to test the legs of the riders.

Eight men flew away from peloton soon after the start, including the always combative Neilson Powless and yesterday’s winner Quinn Simmons. His dream to go back to back was quickly shattered by peloton, which imposed a hard pace to make sure the break didn’t succeed for the second day in a row.

UAE was the team commanding the bunch, laying the groundwork for a João Almeida attack. The Portuguese tried it for the first time during the Splügenpass, but he didn’t manage to break the group. However, his second acceleration was incontestable, going solo still with plenty of kilometres to go.

The rest of the GC contenders regrouped during the descent, but they were unable to catch Almeida. The Portuguese raised his arms and recovered more than 40 precious seconds, while Oscar Onley and Ben O’Connor completed the podium.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

We have finally seen João Almeida at his best. We were expecting it, we were worried, but the UAE Team Emirates XRG has put the batteries on time and its leader has given a punch on the table.

He now has just over 2 minutes on Romain Grégoire's lead and just over 1 to catch Ben O'Connor. It looks like he will do it quietly, perhaps even from stage 5 onwards.

As for Grégoire, very well held on to the lead for another day. O'Connor is now less than 1 minute behind after a good job. And as for the Spaniards and Movistar Team, Pablo Castrillo is brilliant and can start dreaming of a podium.

João Almeida's comeback began yesterday and continued today. If there were any doubts that the Portuguese rider is the strongest man in the Helvetian race, they were dispelled today. The race started at a crazy speed. Almost 55 kilometres covered in the first hour. That's why the breakaway only formed when the peloton reached the feed zone.

In the meantime, the men had 37 kilometres of uphill ahead of them, the last few of which were very tough. João Almeida didn't blow up the race with an attack on Pogacar, but he set a very high pace and left his rivals behind one by one, to go solo over 44 kms. On the descent Almeida wasted no time, and wasn´t in a killer mode, all or nothing.

Behind him, Grégoire took advantage of a push and Alaphilippe's wheel to avoid losing the leader's jersey. O'Connor and Onley minimised their losses at the end, but the Australian can already feel the Portuguese breathing close to his ears.

A word for Jan Christen: after all, when you want to, you can work. The UAE has a very short team in depth in Switzerland and it showed today. If the climb had been tougher, the differences would have been greater. But you have to play with the available chess stones. Sad to see Geraint Thomas, Michael Woods and even Pelayo Sanchez drop out. Lorenzo Fortunato didn't abandon, but I don't know if he'll start tomorrow.

UAE finally showed up to the race as a team, it was about time. It was refreshing to see all of them work for the common goal: help João Almeida. The Portuguese is in great shape and came here as the number 1 favourite. Today he reaffirmed his candidature.

He is still 2 minutes behind Romain Grégoire, but he will have plenty of opportunities to close that gap during the next days, and the last uphill time-trial benefits him enormously. I was dubious whether he would actually have the capacity to bounce back after the debacle of the first day, but today has proved he has the legs and for me he is the main favourite once again.

Romain Grégoire is impressing me, he is showing terrific climbing abilities that were unknown to me so far. I expected him to lose most if not all of his lead to the pure climbers today, but nothing could be further from the truth. And he is more than decent in time-trials, so I think he will finish in the podium. He will be a man to watch at the Tour de France that’s for sure.