"I think we were perfect today" - João Almeida and UAE Team Emirates take on Valenciana race lead
Cycling
Mathias Vacek started the day in the lead of the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana but a crash early in the day made it impossible for the Lidl-Trek rider to defend himself. In the second mountain stage of the race, João Almeida found himself in the virtual lead and in a defensive mindset against Santiago Buitrago. At the end of the day, he jumped into the race lead.
"The stage was not that hard you know, not that many climbs, we gave everything we had, my teammates were amazing today like always," Almeida said in a post-race interview as shared by the team. "We managed to get the bonus seconds to defend ourselves from Santiago, at the finish line the same, it's going to be like this to the end I suppose".
UAE paced in the final tough ascent, and the pace of Pavel Sivakov dropped the former yellow jersey. From there on, it was about controlling Almeida's rivals. He had to respond to Buitrago in the ascent as the two battled for bonifications. Then, Iván Romeo jumped to the stage win with a formidable solo attack. "We were already predicting it, with so many guys close to each other, if one guy gets a gap it's him fighting for the win".
But the Portuguese rider was focused on the race lead, and then sprinted to third in the end, defending himself from the Bahrain - Victorious rider by a mere 2 seconds. "Then we have bonifications in the end as well, I think we were perfect today, we did everything we could, we were able to maximize our performance".
But the race is far from over, with a tricky hilly stage tomorrow where many can attack, and several bonification points where Buitrago could move into the race lead. "One bonification is enough to put me in second at least so until Sunday we go for every second we can, hopefully we can finish it off but it's far away from that," he concluded.
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Problems with the zip, perhaps, but no problems in the legs for @JooAlmeida98. We take the leader’s jersey heading into stage 4! 💛🙌🏻
— @UAE-TeamEmirates (@TeamEmiratesUAE) February 7, 2025
Hats off to all of our guys for a fantastic ride today. The plan was to make it hard, and that they did 💪🏻
Tomorrow, we go again! #WeAreUAE pic.twitter.com/xR9OEhKiu7
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- Funny that they shorten women’s races but have no qualms about letting U23 do the same distances.Jumpyjohn23-03-2025
- Why is that relevant when discussing speed?Mistermaumau23-03-2025
- But he wasn’t the only one ;-)Mistermaumau23-03-2025
- Obviously the questions are more important to some here than to them or the team so I suggest looking for answers instead of asking questions between ourselves. We’ll probably get them unless someone actually goes to ask the protagonists themselves. Here are some starters : They like riding together; they have their own rivalry that helps bring out the best in both; they might get more points helping each other compared to racing separate races. In any case, unless we hear MJ complaining about it, I don’t think it’s going to change, it’s the Sepp Kuss syndrome all over again, fans lobbying against the will of the rider.Mistermaumau23-03-2025
- Mine goes to MVDP for entertaining us all year round :-) Stellar race, Ganna impressive in his own way as many predicted after some oddly lacklustre times.Mistermaumau23-03-2025
- i remember when not too long ago mathieu was regarded as a real tactical knucklehead. i’m not sure that was ever quite accurate, but it’s certainly the case that over the years he has become a real master tactician. in the biggest races, van der poel rarely makes choices that don’t fully optimize every specific advantage he has.OCexile23-03-2025
- Whatever the result, I believe the strategy by UAE to launch Pogacar was absolutely the right one. Unfortunately, they just were not able to execute it the way they must have planned, being all over the place at the start of the Cipressa.Cooldude23-03-2025
- They are without doubt not just the best two classics riders of this generation, but amongst the best of all time. MvdP is more suited to MSR and PR (which Pog has yet to race), while Pog is now almost untouchable at LBL and Lombardia. RVV is the only one where both basically have an equal chance to win.Cooldude23-03-2025
- bravissima!
maria2024202423-03-2025 - According to Tadej's Strava upload, he went up the Cipressa at an average speed of 37.6kph. Rocket ship! He did the 5.63km verified 'Cipressa' Strava segment in 8:59 minutes, which has a 4.3% average grade and total elevation gain of 229m. Naturally, he got the Strava KOM.Pogboom23-03-2025