João Almeida dismissed 'feud' with Juan Ayuso: "We all make mistakes, on both sides, it happens"
Cycling
UAE Team Emirates - XRG spent the month of December training in the south of Spain, in the well-known city of Benidorm. In there, João Almeida gave an extensive insight into his 2024 season, goals, Juan Ayuso, Tadej Pogacar, the Tour de France debut, his Tour de Suisse's victorious run and more.
João Almeida is entering his 4th season with the UAE team and spoke about his debut in the Tour de France last summer, starting by talking about his preparation for the three-week race in the Tour de Suisse, where he won two stages and finished 2nd overall behind teammate Adam Yates.
"In Switzerland I was at my peak form. In the Tour de Suisse I caught a cold, not just me but other athletes, and the following week I couldn't train much to recover 100% for the Tour. I had a week there where I trained very little and I noticed this lack of training later in the Tour. I didn't start the Tour with my best legs, but honestly I went from less to more in the Tour and the last week was the week I felt the best."
In fact, the young man from Caldas da Rainha wasn't very exuberant in the first week of the race, with the exception of the Col du Galibier stage. "The first week of the Tour was when I felt the worst, the first few days were very bad. I had one day there that I felt really good, which was the Galibier, but apart from that day it was the hardest week for me, but after the first week I felt better and I think I finished quite well," he told TopCycling.
Almeida has no doubts: "The Tour is the Tour. It's totally different. I've done four Giri d'Italia, three La Vueltas, but the Tour is a different race, not just because of the media coverage. It's a summer race, the pace is different, everyone is at peak form. There's always some kind of interest in any stage, even if it's a finish line, there's always a team that's going to take that finish line and it's a race that 80 kilometers from the finish line we're already making trains to be well positioned... It's an incredible fight for position."
"Being part of the Champion's team, the level of respect is always higher, which makes things easier sometimes," says Almeida, referring to having been alongside Tadej Pogacar in his comeback in the Tour de France, where he finished 4th in the General Classification, having made the podium in Nice not only because UAE Team Emirates won the race collectively, but because João Almeida was considered by the race organizers to be the "best domestique" of the 2024 Tour. "I showed what I'm worth and the kind of person I am, which I think is important."
Regarding the controversial moment with Juan Ayuso at the Col du Galibier, which caused a lot of ink to run, the 26-year old clarifies. "To put an end to the controversy, they've always been fine. We get on well, we have nothing against each other. Sometimes there are racing situations that don't go 100% as we'd like, but then it's something that's talked about, it's discussed, it's over there and that's that. We all make mistakes, on both sides, it happens. The most important thing is to learn from your mistakes."
The UAE team has a lot of big names and sometimes that becomes difficult to manage, because there are so many egos and the ambitions of all the riders are the same. "That's the job of the sporting directors and Matxin, who is the general manager, but it's certainly not easy to manage all that, to find opportunities for all the riders, for everyone to be even remotely satisfied. In a team like ours, which has a lot of talented athletes, he has managed things well. Sometimes people have to swallow their own ego in certain situations, but then it's up to everyone to make the decisions they think are right."
Sometimes you have to prioritize your teammates... "Exactly, it's part of life, so to speak, I think it helps us grow and better a bird in the hand than two in the bush." The team's success in 2024 was resounding, with many victories won by 20 different cyclists, a formula that will be difficult to repeat or even improve "Yes, better is a bit difficult. A lot of the success we've had and that near-perfection is down to Tadej, who is a surreal racer. Most of the successes we've had are down to him. Of course, without the team he couldn't do it on his own, obviously."
This year João Almeida will leave the Ardennes Classics off his calendar, but he has expressed his desire to return to the Amstel Gold Race and Liege - Bastogne - Liege, although he doesn't want to repeat La Fléche Wallonne. He'll be racing the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana and Tour de Romandie for the first time. "It'll be the first time I've done them and I'm excited. Different, new races," for which he feels motivated "They're different climbs, different dynamics and even the athletes I'll be competing against. They take place at a different time of the season, which also changes a lot"
João will return to Portugal next February, after missing the Figueira Champions Classic and the Volta ao Algarve last year due to illness. "Yes, I haven't done the Algarve for a while and I want to get back to the race and do my best and try to get a win for the Portuguese, I think that would be really good."
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