João Almeida has crashed on stage 8 but has since given nothing but good signs. The Portuguese climber attacked stage 9's neutralized summit finish to win a few seconds and has in yesterday's time-trial finished fourth to make further gains in the overall classification.
“I was good, I succeeded in doing a good effort, so I am happy and I could take time on the other contenders," he said in a post-race interview. Almeida rode to fourth on the day, 50 seconds down on Filippo Ganna, but only 34 on Remco Evenepoel who led the charge for the overall classification contenders. Almeida has been steadily jumping up the GC over the past few days, and is now sixth, 2:16 minutes behind Sepp Kuss and 1:07 minutes behind Evenepoel.
With this time-trial, Almeida has also become UAE Team Emirates' second best positioned rider in the race. Marc Soler remains in second place as he continues to benefit from the breakaway on stage 6, however Almeida is now ahead of Juan Ayuso. The trio still have great opportunities to do damage in the race, despite the current form of Remco Evenepoel, and the equally impressive depth of Jumbo-Visma.
"Tomorrow (today, ed.) we will face another hard day, not super tough but it will be necessary to be up there and be vigilant," he says of today's summit finish at Laguna Negra de Vinuesa. "We’ll focus the attention on the next stages until to the summit arrival on the Tourmalet, it will be important to save energy until that point”.
More from Almeida: “Tomorrow we will face another hard day, not super tough but it will be necessary to be up there and be vigilant. We’ll focus the attention on the next stages until to the summit arrival on the Tourmalet, it will be important to save energy until that point”.
