"They almost can't afford to lose to each other" - Bruyneel and Martin on UAE's Almeida-Ayuso battle into 2025 La Vuelta

The 2025 Vuelta a Espana starts today in Torino with Jonas VIngegaard as the main favourite for overall victory. However, the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider will have to contest with a very strong UAE Team Emirates - XRG team that has both Juan Ayuso and João Almeida at the start. But will the duo focus exclusively on Vingegaard or will they focus on their own ambitions and points to prove.

"The thing that is super important in the Vuelta is freshness. We never know how somebody's going to recover from the Tour. Between the Tour and the Vuelta, there's not that much time," Johan Bruyneel argued in the Outcomes podcast. The Belgian pundit argues that the Visma rider continues to be the man to beat, but could be closely rivalred by both UAE riders.

"It's physical recovery, mental recovery. Almeida was in great shape. He had the crash. It depends how fast he could train again, but I suspect it was pretty early he could train again. He's mentally and physically fresh. That's a huge advantage."

"It's the Vuelta a España, so it's the third big stage race of the year, when usually it's kind of the rematch or somebody who has not gotten what they thought they would get, then it's kind of the second opportunity. I mean, it's difficult to say that Vingegaard has failed, right? I mean, he was still second in The tour, he was the second strongest rider. And yeah, I mean, he's the big favourite. He has to win this, especially, as you said, 11 uphill finishes, mountain heavy, plus he has a really strong team. Visma obviously came here with a lot of ambition".

This is boosted by the fact that in Bruyneel's eyes, Visma selected an incredibly strong team, which puts them ahead of UAE and in a position to support the Dane on all terrains. This was already the case at the Tour de France where Visma tirelessly attacked UAE, but Pogacar's armour was not cracked in the 21 days of racing.

"They sent Sepp Kuss and Jorgensen and Campenaerts and Kelderman and van Baarle and named them, you know? So yeah, I think Jonas wins this. The only thing is, I just read actually today, a little interview I have, I only saw the title, but it said somewhere that he had been sick in this week leading up to the Vuelta, never a good sign".

"We don't know if it's a smokescreen or not, but normally quality wise, he's the best rider. I mean, he's the second best rider in the world in terms of stage races, especially on climbs. And this Vuelta is in the mountains almost every day. We've been in a situation like this two years ago, right? Where Jonas was the second strongest". In that edition Vingegaard finished second to teammate Sepp Kuss, and Visma could also potentially deploy those tactics with the American again, or even his compatriot Matteo jorgenson.

"I mean, we should say Jonas's Visma team, incredibly strong, like Tour de France team, strong. Outside of him, they have Axel Zingle, Victor Campenaerts, Matteo Jorgensen, Wilco Kelderman, Sepp Kuss, Ben Tulett, Dylan Van Baarle. Like that's a very strong team," Spencer Martin argued.

"They are ready to go here. But UAE has Juan Ayuso and João Almeida to the two GC cadets for them. Ayuso didn't look great at San Sebastian, got dropped. I never liked to see that at the beginning or a few weeks out of a Grand Tour target. But if there's pressure on Jonas, like if Jonas has to win this, these guys also have a lot of pressure on them because they are on a team with Tadej Pogacar and Isaac Del Toro, and they're fighting for a very limited number of GC leadership slots".

This could end up being a decisive point in this Vuelta. Albeit it's hard to read into the relationship of the two at the start of this race, both are legitimate Grand Tour leaders in 90% of the World Tour teams, but in UAE they have to fight for their position and status. This greatly depends on their results at the Grand Tours, which may undermine their overall tactic to a certain degree.

"This is the time to prove that you can take one of those spots. You know, you could imagine losing to Vingegaard and that's okay, but they almost can't afford to lose to each other. So they're going to be very motivated to do as good as they can".

On Vingegaard, Martin also believes we have the main favourite and clear man to beat. "He's probably going to win, but coming out of that Tour, I don't know. I just, the longer I have to reflect on that, he had a decent third week, he matched Pogacar. But I don't know, like, was he stronger than he was the year before, after he had the disrupted run-in, the failure to win that stage with Arensman's been hanging out there, that still just like, doesn't sit that right with me. And then I think about Almeida, like eventually these guys, these younger guys will start to put pressure on the established stars, Jonas Vindegard being one of them":

However, he believes we could well see a surprise, and a potential first-ever Grand Tour victory for a Portuguese rider: "I'm going to go out on a limb and pick Joao Almeida to win this race. I'm not going to pick Juan Ayuso because we've not heard great things about his preparation, but he's another guy. Like if he's as good as we hear he is, he should at least be in contention for winning this. I'm going to pick Almeida out of those two. I was super impressed with the season up to the Tour when he crashed out".