João Almeida: "I’ve got unfinished business with the Giro d’Italia"
Cycling
2023 is a new year but the main goal continues to be the Giro d'Italia for João Almeida. As Tadej Pogacar targets the Tour de France, the Portuguese rider continuous his hunt for success at the Corsa Rosa, and will dream of the pink jersey once again this year.
“I’ve got unfinished business with the Giro d’Italia. If I had done it normally, I’d maybe have gone to the Tour de France in 2023," Almeida told Cyclingnews. “But after the way it went, I want to do the Giro again, have a normal race with no setbacks and see what I can do.”
Last season his plans were wrecked by a Covid-19 infection at the Giro. He was riding in fourth place and in contention for the podium - and win - in the final week until he came down with the disease at a very bad timing. “It’s a Grand Tour so you have some shit days. The last stage I rode I felt a bit weird, but some days in a Grand Tour, that just happens, we suffer more."
"Then at three or four in the morning, I woke up with a sore throat, temperature, in pain. Even it hadn’t been COVID, I couldn’t have started. But we did five or six tests and all of them came back positive anyway,” Almeida described.
An abandon was inevitable: “It was frustrating. I think I was up there, in a good position, and anything could happen in the last days, as we saw. But I’m young, so I can go back again. Situations like that, they’re part of the game.”
He returned to race the Vuelta a Espana where he finished fifth, besides winning the national road race title and queen stage at the Vuelta a Burgos. This May he will team up with Jay Vine in the pursuit of a high overall classification result at the Giro d'Italia, before he likely begins aiming towards the Tour de France.
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- Some things sound crazy until they aren't, what if he's actually right? 🤷vappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Why make a comment to state the obvious? Of course MvdP is much better at CX than Pogacar, does anyone doubt that But that wasn't his pointvappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- If you look at road alone obvi Pogacar is the better rider. But maybe MVDP is the better overall rider since he can win in three plus disciplines?mobk23-12-2024
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- A champion turning into a sore loser. Or is he on coke again?
UltimateOpportunist23-12-2024 - If you look at the major races they’ve both been in, van der Poel had the early edge as lately Pogacar has had the advantage. It’s all on procyclingstats.RidesHills23-12-2024
- I wouldn’t assume Tadej can’t win at cross. He did a cross race, not a World Cup, a few years ago and crushed the field. It was a minor race. But he can win anywhere.mij23-12-2024
- I wonder what would happen if Pogacar attacked on the Cipressa instead of the Poggio in San Remo? Would MvdPoel still be able to follow?Ride197423-12-2024