After a disastrous opening day at the 2025
Tour de Suisse saw him lose more than three minutes, Joao Almeida looked completely out of the fight for the general classification. Although still just over two minutes back after a solo win on stage 4, the momentum is suddenly back on the side of the Portuguese star.
Almeida was able to gain exactly a minute back on race leader Romain Gregoire - before bonus seconds - thanks to his stage 4 solo and a result, the
UAE Team Emirates - XRG leader has pulled back to 7th place on the GC, 2:07 down on the Frenchman in the Maillot Jaune with four stages still to go. In other words, Almeida is still very much in the fight for the win.
"It was a hard effort, really good teamwork, and it's nice to finish it off," Almeida reflected to the media moments after his stage win success in Switzerland. "There's still a long way to go, a lot of time to get back, but I'm happy with the stage win and we will go and enjoy this one."
When it was proposed to Almeida that he is now the favourite for the race however, the Portuguese wasn't quite so firm. "I have to disagree [on being the favourite now], because for me, it's up to me to take time back and it's going to be a super hard task, but we never give up," he concludes. "Well, I need to try; if I don't try, we will never know."
Jan Christen = Ayuso 2.0. Except for Tadej (and not always) in UAE the concept of CAPTAIN is very difficult to understand.
Maybe replace management with AI?