João Almeida: "I’m super happy I’ve been working for this for a long time"

UAE Team Emirates have stacked their team with new climbers and this week they have all been in display at the Volta a Catalunya. Marc Soler and George Bennett set the stage up for a tough finale, and João Almeida completed the work by taking the stage win.

“I’m super happy. I’ve been working for this for a long time. Today I had some bad luck at the beginning but I felt really good at the end," Almeida said in a post-race interview. The team was very aggressive on today's queen stage of the race, having Marc Soler in the breakaway, and George Bennett attack early in the final climb to put the GC rivals under pressure. It wasn't an overly steep climb, one the Portuguese was well suited to and that proved clear towards the end.

In his classic style of racing, Almeida didn't shy away from putting his nose to the win and reeled in an initial dangerous attack by Richard Carapaz and Sergio Higuita. He paced back up to the duo, dropped race leader Ben O'Connor and resisted the attacks of his Colombian rivals. Despite being the first to launch his sprint, Almeida had the power in the end to beat Nairo Quintana - the new race leader with the same time - and Sergio Higuita in the final sprint.

"I was always controlling my effort on the last climb, we had Bennett up the road so it was perfect for us behind as we just had to ride on the wheel. I upped the pace in the last couple of kilometres and sprinted to the victory," Almeida added.

He sits second in the overall classification, tied with Quintana. Every singly second may be decisive for the GC fight, but UAE are still in a position where they can grab the overall win: "There are some hard stages coming up, especially the last one but we are happy with how it’s going for us.”