"I don't know exactly what I had" - No Tour de France for João Almeida, who opens up on how mystery virus wrecked his spring

João Almeida resumes racing this Sunday at the Tour Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes, his first race in almost three months. The Portuguese rider reveals that he never discovered what virus affected him and took him out of the Giro d'Italia; whilst also confirming that he will not take part in the upcoming Tour de France.

Almeida began his season with a second place at the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana, followed by a third place at the Volta ao Algarve. The Portuguese rider would then follow a traditional run-up to the Giro d'Italia, including the Volta a Catalunya where he was set to test himself up against Jonas Vingegaard. However, in the race, he was nowhere near the level expected of him - whilst a crash on the queen stage to Queralt took him out of the overall classification fully. There was still time to recover his level until the Giro, but the situation looked dire.

In the weeks that followed Catalunya he travelled to altitude and looked to recover from the illness that had been hampering him in Catalunya, but this did not happen. In fact he remained ill for a very extended period of time, which did not allow him to neither train or recover in the way he usually does. Eventually, the team announced he would not take part in the Giro, where he was seen as Jonas Vingegaard's biggest rival.

Only in early May did Almeida begin training properly. "I took a break to rest before the Giro and I've been training for about three or four weeks," Almeida said to O Jogo. "Training has been going well, I've been feeling good. I've finally recovered, but I don't know exactly what I had. In the tests, I had quite a few altered values, but we never really understood the main cause for these changes."

"Right after the [Volta a Catalunya], I had to rest to recover from the race and then I started training little by little. I didn't feel too bad, but I didn't feel excellent. And then there's always that pressure of having to train because I have the Giro. I even did altitude training, but my tests weren't improving."

The illness simply would not go away, and the team also could not diagnose what was hampering the Portuguese rider. A few weeks before the Giro it became clear that there were no chances of competing at the Corsa Rosa with his predetermined ambitions.

"I was always realistic and knew I wasn't well, so there wasn't much I could do. Of course, then I also had to deal with team issues. I wasn't prepared, I don't think even for a stage. I wasn't going to do much there anyway, it was better to give another teammate the opportunity to succeed and try to get good results, which is what happened."

Now, Almeida returns to racing at the Tour Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes, where he will support Isaac del Toro's ambitions, not fight for his own result. "I don't want to go there with the goal of getting any result, nor fighting for the race. I'm going there to try to help my teammates as best I can. How I feel, and try to train for the race. We know it's difficult because it's a very demanding race, it has a lot of climbs, it's a very tough course."

But he is quick to deny the idea that he would potentially join the lineup for the Tour de France, in which Adam Yates and Marc Soler can be potentially removed at their injuries at the Giro d'Italia. Almeida will not race it.

"That possibility only depended on my progress and how I would react over time. Personally, I feel I wouldn't be ready to do a Tour de France," he admits. "There are many rough edges to smooth out to be at the level of a Tour, it's a very demanding race".

"And clearly, I don't think I'll be able to be at that level. I think the best possibility for that would be to continue training and not compete in the Dauphiné".

Instead he races in France, and most likely the Portuguese national championships later in June too. But his focus already lays on the final months of the season, in which he may still have the opportunity to lead UAE Team Emirates - XRG at the Vuelta a España.

"My schedule for the second half of the season, for now, at least as far as I know, will remain exactly the same. That will be San Sebastián, [Vuelta a] Burgos and the Vuelta a España. I don't know if I'll do any extra races besides those. Then, obviously, I'll also do the World Championships," he shared.