{"id":106642,"date":"2025-09-01T09:51:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/106642\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T09:51:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:51:20","slug":"tom-pidcock-becomes-latest-joao-almeida-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/106642\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Pidcock becomes latest Jo\u00e3o Almeida target"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Pidcock-by-Naike-Erenozaga-1200x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-198723\"  \/>Tom Pidcock explains why he sat on Jo\u00e3o Almeida for much of the final climb at La Vuelta stage 9, and then sprinted against him (Photo: Naike Ere\u00f1ozaga)<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Just a couple of days after accusing Jonas Vingegaard of being workshy when he had a chance to get away in a breakaway, Jo\u00e3o Almeida has now directed his criticisms at Tom Pidcock, telling the British rider to \u201cgrow some balls\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The criticism came after Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) sat on Almeida (UAE Team Emirates XRG) for most of the final climb on stage 9 of La Vuelta today, Sunday, only for Pidcock to sprint against him at the finish and beat him for 2nd place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Almeida and Pidcock were 2nd and 3rd on the road for the final cat 1 climb to the finish at Estaci\u00f3n de Esqu\u00ed de Valdezcaray. They were chasing Vingegaard (Visma Lease a Bike), who had attacked early on the ascent and powered clear for a solo stage win and time gain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">In the chase behind him, Almeida was definitely more capable of riding hard than Pidcock, with the British rider staying glued to his wheel for most of the ascent. <\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">However, Pidcock clearly felt revived at the finish, where he sprinted in for 2nd place, also taking some bonus seconds off Almeida. At stage end, Pidcock said Almeida wasn\u2019t too impressed with the way he rode.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI thought Almeida\u2019s was the perfect wheel to go on, and I thought maybe we\u2019d come back, but chapeau to him \u2013 I couldn\u2019t give him any turns,\u201d Pidcock said of their two-man chase after Vingegaard made his move.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHe was shouting at me, but he\u2019s like a tractor, you know, especially when we got on this flatter section. Then the last kilometre when he went, it was impressive, I could only just come round him at the finish, but I\u2019m happy to be honest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHe told me to grow some balls,\u201d Pidcock added, with a laugh as he spoke to the media in the finish area. \u201cBut if he rides a bit slower, I\u2019ll give him some more turns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"es\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\ude21 El cabreo de Almeida con Pidcock por no ayudar en la persecuci\u00f3n a Vingegaard.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LaVuelta25?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#LaVuelta25<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AwxrRQ18Hx\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/AwxrRQ18Hx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Eurosport.es (@Eurosport_ES) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Eurosport_ES\/status\/1962170111231508634?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 31, 2025<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">On Friday\u2019s stage 7 of the race, Almeida found himself off the front of the general classification group with Vingegaard. He clearly wanted to press home their advantage on the final climb to Cerlers but the Danish rider wouldn\u2019t cooperate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">When asked about that at the finish, Almeida said he understood Vingegaard didn\u2019t need to ride. But he then suggest Vingegaard was a conversative rider, anyway, and not known for his work on the front. \u201cI think he doesn\u2019t really pull a lot of times, right?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Pidcock explains why he sat on Jo\u00e3o Almeida for much of the final climb at La Vuelta&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-106642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}