{"id":107804,"date":"2025-08-30T12:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T12:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/107804\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T12:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T12:14:09","slug":"almeida-sasses-vingegaard-he-doesnt-pull-that-often","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/107804\/","title":{"rendered":"Almeida sasses Vingegaard: \u2018He doesn\u2019t pull that often\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It doesn\u2019t take long for fatigue to set in during a Grand Tour\u2014and the chirping begins!<\/p>\n<p>The GC riders finished together on Stage 7, but that didn\u2019t stop UAE Emirates\u2019 Jo\u00e3o Almeida from taking a little dig at the odd-son favourite, Jonas Vingegaard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel good every day. That\u2019s a good sign. And I\u2019m looking forward to the next big battle,\u201d Almeida told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurosport.fr\/cyclisme\/tour-d-espagne\/2025\/vuelta-une-premiere-idee-sur-les-favoris-de-la-vuelta-trois-hommes-se-degagent-pour-la-victoire-finale_vid60025252\/video.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eurosport<\/a>. \u201cI asked Marc Soler to set the pace on the final climb, but honestly, I expected it to be harder. Still, I gave it a go. The others behind didn\u2019t want to work, but whatever\u2014it\u2019s another day ticked off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The post-race interview also touched on the tactics of two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard. \u201cHe didn\u2019t really have to push today. So I\u2019m not surprised he didn\u2019t, and in a way I get it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it is what it is\u2014he doesn\u2019t pull that often, does he?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/uae-emirates-earns-natural-hat-trick-of-2025-vuelta-stage-wins\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Juan Ayuso took a great win<\/a>, after faltering the day before. The Spanish rider is no longer a GC contender, which means it\u2019s all up to Almeida to try for the maillot rojo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not surprised by what he did today. He\u2019s an amazing, super-strong rider. Sure, he has his ups and downs. But he definitely deserves it. He was brilliant today,\u201d Almeida said.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Norwegian Torstein Tr\u00e6en kept his leader\u2019s jersey, though he admitted it wasn\u2019t easy. He finished in the selection with Vingegaard, Ayuso, and Pidcock\u2014the favourites for the win. \u201cOn the last climb, my only job was to stick with the strongest riders\u2014that in itself felt new to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Stage 8 is flat, so the GC riders can \u2018relax,\u2019 but they still need to make it to the line safely. They also want to use as little energy as possible, as<\/p>\n<p>Stage 9 is another tough summit finish from Alfaro to Estaci\u00f3n de Esqu\u00ed de Valdezcaray, covering a total of 195.5\u202fkm. The final climb is 13.3\u202fkm at an average of 5.2\u202f per cent but the finale is steep and punishing. It should be another battle between the riders going for the overall\u2014and maybe, just maybe, Vingegaard will pull. Or better yet, drop everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It doesn\u2019t take long for fatigue to set in during a Grand Tour\u2014and the chirping begins! The GC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[37377,49,48,635,42477,5900,42478,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-107804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-2025-vuelta-a-espana","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-joao-almeida","13":"tag-jonas-vingegaard","14":"tag-juan-ayuso","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}