Vuelta: João Almeida, the brave of the peloton

He's one of the most consistent riders in the World Tour, the top division of world cycling, when it comes to stage races, and he demonstrated this in the first half of the year. In 2025, João Almeida collected overall victories in three of the seven major one-week races, namely the Tour of the Basque Country, Tour of Romandie, and Tour of Switzerland, equaling a feat previously achieved only by Ireland's Sean Kelly (1984 and 1986) and Britain's Bradley Wiggins (2012).

The A-dos-Francos native arrived at the Tour de France in great form until a fall on the seventh stage led to his early retirement. A fractured rib, in particular, prevented him from being as influential in supporting Tadej Pogacar as he had been in the previous edition (where he finished fourth), but the Emirates-XRG team leader praised his right-hand man's courage, seeing him compete for a stage and a half in such conditions before retiring.

At the end, already crowned in yellow on the Champs-Élysées, the Slovenian dedicated a message to him. "João Almeida, we missed you in Paris, but the Vuelta is calling," he wrote on social media, reserving for the Portuguese the role of lead rider in the Vuelta a España, which Pogacar himself was scheduled to take.

While the team was convinced that a podium finish was within reach in this year's Tour, doubts are mounting for the Vuelta, which kicks off this Saturday, the 23rd, in Turin, and concludes on September 14th, in Madrid. First of all, it's one thing to be "100% recovered," as João Almeida assured last week, but quite another to be able to return to peak form in time. "I hope to be close to my best," he emphasized, without revealing much.

Scandinavian threat

Another factor dampening expectations about a possible final victory is the presence of Jonas Vingegaard, Pogacar's greatest rival and the only one who has challenged him in the three-week races, miles ahead of the others. The Dane is accompanied by a top-tier team, theoretically superior to Emirates, and is considered the leading contender to celebrate in Madrid.

Alongside João Almeida, to increase the distrust, will be Juan Ayuso (called to replace Pogacar), who will be the team's co-leader, in a division of responsibilities that is understandable, but that makes the collective work even more unpredictable, since the Portuguese and the Spaniard do not usually help each other - the image of the first waving his arms at the second, when the latter was pedaling "hidden" in the group of favorites, but far from the front, to save himself from greater wear and tear in favor of Pogacar, in last year's Tour de France, became famous.

"Both are proven assets in the battle for overall standings and complement each other well," said Matxin Fernández, the team's sporting director, when announcing the chosen drivers, following the usual strategy of downplaying the latent tension between the two Iberians.

Finally, the Vuelta 2025 route has few high mountain stages – there are only five – and only one, the one that ends at the legendary summit of L'Angliru (5 September), has three first category or special category stages, those that present a higher degree of difficulty.

João Almeida fares much better with steeper, longer climbs, as does Vingegaard, but both the Dane and Juan Ayuso himself can benefit from several finishes with shorter, more explosive climbs, which many critics say were designed to entice Pogacar to appear.

Needing a rest, the Slovenian preferred to postpone his return (he hasn't participated since 2019) and pass the baton to João Almeida, who throughout the year demonstrated a killer instinct never seen before and the bravery that has always characterized him, thus justifying this further demonstration of confidence.

With his sights set on surpassing his third-place finish at the 2023 Giro d'Italia, his best result in a Grand Tour, the Portuguese rider will also want to bury the bad memories of the previous edition – he withdrew after testing positive for Covid-19 – and fight Jonas Vingegaard until he has no strength left.

Beating him on steeper terrain wouldn't be unprecedented: right at the start of the season, the Portuguese rider beat the leader of Visma Lease a Bike at Alto da Fóia, the summit of the Algarve's Monchique mountains, and weeks later he did it again in a stage of Paris-Nice, where he recovered from a slight delay to win in a sprint, also on a hilly finish.