"Today will be a surviving stage" - João Almeida fears rain and strong breakaway on tricky Paris-Nice stage

João Almeida began his season late at Paris-Nice, but has deal with the tough conditions quite well so far. The UAE Team Emirates rider is currently a contender for the podium or even more, but today's explosive stage can be a difficult one.

"Today will be a surviving stage I would say. Conditions will be quite bad, it's all about surviving," Almeida shared with CyclingPro.net this morning. "It depends on the breakaway of course, I'm not planning anything but yeah we need to be careful we have to see if the breakaway goes or not. We have a hard stage for sure." 

Stage 6 will be a hilly day into La-Colle-sur-Loup, the finale features a steep ascent that sees the gradients reach 19% and some rolling terrain afterwards. Combining this with some rough weather conditions and it could be a deadly day for some GC contenders. "I don't like the rain at all, I think no-one likes it but we have to deal with it so it is what it is," he says of it.

Almeida sits 4th in the GC at the start of the day; 29 seconds behind race leader Luke Plapp, 2 behind teammate Brandon McNulty and 1 ahead of Remco Evenepoel. "Brandon is looking very good so of course we're trying to go both for a good result," he says when asked if he "remains" (as hinted by McNulty some days ago) the sole leader of the team. "... Things are looking good so fingers crossed for tomorrow."