João Almeida thrilled after putting on show at Col du Galibier: "I was able to destroy the competitors"

João Almeida had an interesting stage today at the Tour de France. Perhaps most have taken notice to the gesture towards Juan Ayuso on the Col du Galibier but neither he or the team gave much importance to that, having the strong headwind on that section of the climb as the justification for both riders working together at the front of the group. The Portuguese rider was an MVP for Tadej Pogacar today on the queen stage of the first week.

“I’m happy that, like you said, I was able to destroy the competitors. Now I’m looking forward to the next stages," Almeids said in an interview with Wielerflits. UAE Team Emirates spent the day in the head of the peloton with Nils Politt controlling the breakaway; whilst Tim Wellens, Marc Soler, Pavel Sivakov and Adam Yates shred the peloton down to only 10 riders in the GC group.

Ayuso and Almeida then shared the duty in the group until Pogacar attacked in the final kilometer of the climb. Almeida rues the headwind, he believes that there could've been even bigger differences: “Of course. If we hadn’t had a headwind, we would have had big differences. That would have been better for us. But there was a headwind, so we never know.”

“The climb itself is not super hard. Only the last part is a bit steeper, so it wouldn’t be smart to attack earlier. That was the only moment where he could make a difference, and he did it. Five stars for everyone’s work," he concluded. The 25-year old struggled on the final descent and lost 18 seconds to the chasing group, but it is a small loss in the bigger picture. After today he is 8th in the overall classification, 1:32 minutes down on his teammate. He will certainly continue to have a support role throughout the next few weeks but it should not hamper him from fighting for his own result in the overall classification.