😃 Hi @TeamEmiratesUAE! You have some fans waiting for you! ¡Hola, @TeamEmiratesUAE! 😎Tenéis algunos fans esperando en el bus. #LaVuelta24
"I haven’t been feeling very good on the bike" - João Almeida limits expectations in first key Vuelta a Espana stage
CyclingTuesday, 20 August 2024 at 13:27
João Almeida is a popular rider and has been able to start a Grand Tour in his home country of Portugal where fans swarmed him in all places. Now the race enters it's key phase with a high mountain battle predicted today for Pico Villuercas but the UAE Team Emirates rider did not have the best feelings on the bike over the past few days.
The race has moved on to Spain now, but Almeida was the absolute superstar in the first three days of the race in his home country. “I have a positive assessment. A very good time trial, in which I was very happy with the result and the effort itself, and then now two days with phenomenal support," he told O Jogo after the finale in Castelo Branco. "I really have no words. It was incredible and it has always been incredible.”
The initial time-trial was good for the rider who finished fourth at the Tour de France and began the Vuelta as a contender for the final victory. He still is, naturally, like many he said he would wait for today's stage to access ambitions for the rest of the race. “I don’t have many prospects for tomorrow (today's stage 4, ed.). I’m going to do my best to try to get the best possible position". UAE will certainly support him and Adam Yates the most, but do have plenty riders capable of finishing well positioned atop Pico Villuercas.
The Portuguese however admits he hasn't felt at his best on the bike over these two sprint stages. "The feeling hasn’t been the best," he continues, not the best of words heading into a finale that features 3 kilometers at 13% and where differences are certain among the GC riders.
"I haven’t been feeling very good on the bike, but hey, tomorrow is another day, and I’ll certainly leave everything on the road, and we’ll see what the final result will be. But hey, whether it’s good or bad, I’ll give it my all, and cycling has these things too, doesn’t it? It’s always a bit unpredictable sometimes," he concludes.
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- To be fair, he has now stated his fuel regime had been corrected and the results concur.Mistermaumau20-12-2024
- You can look at things mathematically sometimes to get a better understanding of performance distribution. To be an elite cyclist you may need a number of qualities, say 8 some of which are quite obvious (engine), some more debatable (body type). If you look at distribution you’ll get a whole bunch with 6 or 7 very elevated values but 1-2 not so perfect and occasionally someone will pop up with all 8 really well developed. However, statistically, for that to be a given the chances drop by about an order of magnitude each time so in general for each 2 at the top you’ll have 20 at the next level, 200 at tge 3rd, 2000, etc. I don’t see the actual distribution as so weird, we have a few too many right at the very top level but statistically it’s just because for the past 15-20 years there wasn’t really anyone clearly standing out, level 1 was bunched with level two.Mistermaumau20-12-2024
- Froome is still riding? I thought he just dressed out and appeared at team photoshoots.Sweep20-12-2024
- Well, I’d say that like is more likely to attract line when it comes to certain interests and cycling is probably one of them. The rowdy alcohol swaying type as an example, that features occasionally but EACh time there is an incident is obviously an exception amongst cycling fans. We are not very vocal about our passion which is understandable considering the little interest an average person has so it often takes special circumstances for us to discover our peers :-)Mistermaumau20-12-2024
- Mas... Challenge Pogi!!! Ha Ha Haabstractengineer20-12-2024
- They (USA Cycling) raised their permit fee from from $95 to $125 and the minimum insurance charge went from $300 to $400.JoeyB20-12-2024
- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024