"We won today, but the race is still very hard" - Overall win clear goal for UAE Team Emirates at Giro after João Almeida win
Cycling
Fabio Baldato, technical director of UAE Team Emirates, was very satisfied with the great victory of his rider Joao Almeida in the first big mountain stage of the Giro d'Italia 2023.
"Congratulations to him, he was fine and he wanted to try, maybe a little early, but he wanted to try and he put the team to work. He was good and Thomas was also super. João was good, with ambition," he said minutes after the stage win.
He believes that the team did a great job during the stage, placing Diego Ulissi in the breakaway and then working with Davide Formolo and Jay Vine in the peloton to set up an attack. "With Ulissi in the lead we had a point to stop, he did a little bit of work is fine, when the leader is strong the guys do extra work which is important."
Eventually, inside the final 10 kilometers, differences began to be made. Almeida launched two attacks that saw him isolated from the rest of the race, but was joined by Geraint Thomas afterwards. The two collaborated and Almeida won the sprint to the line, his first Giro win.
Baldato does not speak directly of winning the Giro d'Italia, but it is clear from his words that this is the objective with which UAE and Almeida have come to the transalpine country for these three weeks: "We won today, but the race is still very hard, there are three important mountain days and with the impressive time trial, we'll see, I'm crossing my fingers."
Almeida's impressive performance saw him jump from fourth to second in the overall classification and now sits only 18 seconds away from the pink jersey which belongs to Geraint Thomas.
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- He is boring
leedorney08-11-2026 - To Twoje przemyślenia te bla, bla :)
Dariusz08-11-2026 - Uwielbiam patrzeć, jak wyjeżdża na czoło peletonu i zaczyna się rzeź...Dariusz08-11-2026
- Yeah, unreal.
parisbound0008-11-2026 - there needs to be space in life for pointless comments!Ketterechts08-11-2026
- That is a very lazy way of putting it but so far on this website it seems like everyone is happy to look at everything lazily, even things that annoy them intensely. All they want to do is state their feeling and position but ask most to analyse a problem or come up with solutions or improvements and you’re stunned by silence. Nobody even really knows how this all happens. It’s very simple and quick to just say the UCI did it but I bet you they didn’t, I bet you not more than 2 people were involved, more likely just 1. The UCI may be ultimately responsible but it is not their decision, this is about hierarchy, power and delegation. The fact that protest is possible also means it isn’t over and that MORE people could get involved for a thorough review which could throw up anything. It is highly likely it was a sole commissar who decided and has that power in a first round. Therein might lie the problem the UCI has to consider, is it acceptable to give so much authority to one single person when it is quite possible for them to have a natural bias or be too easily susceptible to imposed bias. Who is to say an individual in this position isn’t susceptible to collaboration with outside players with interests in the results, nations, families, teams, betting companies, etc. On the one hand we have sports where these problems have been worked on way more to reduce such problems, on the other hand we have sports with far stricter and more draconian rules not even concerning safety or obstruction that nobody really questions like false starts or stepping out of lane or zones in athletics. If cycling hastowork on itself, it would be good if protagonists (all kinds) would start doing a little more than just moaning over outcomes.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- Yes, so why not make comments less pointless?Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
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Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026 - There really was nothing in it. Schreiber was so much faster, and Brand was fighting to stay in the wheel in the sprint. Schreiber did move a bit, but to say she closed the door doesn't make sense because Brand couldn't enter it anyway, abd she wasn't impeded.Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026
- He should have been allowed to go to Movistar. Right now both arent a good fit for each other and are just wasting each other's time and effortabstractengineer08-11-2026
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🚴💗 ¡¡GERAINT THOMAS, NUEVO LÍDER DEL GIRO!! 🏁 ¡Almeida se hace con el triunfo en Monte Bondone! Thomas recupera la maglia rosa y ambos le meten tiempo a Roglic. 📺📱💻 Sigue todo el @giroditalia en @Eurosport_ES
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