Jo\u00e3o Almeida delivered a valiant effort today in Stage 20 of La Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, finishing fifth on the gruelling summit finish at Bola del Mundo. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG team leader left it all out on the road from Robledo de Chavela to Bola del Mundo, as the race battle heads into the final day.<\/p>\n
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Starting the stage 44 seconds behind race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike), Almeida rode with resolve on the steep slopes, pushing the rivals, closing gaps and staying with the front group as the climb struck its hardest gradients. <\/p>\n
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Though he was unable to match the decisive surge from Vingegaard in the final kilometre, Almeida finished strongly, crossing the line 22 seconds behind the stage winner. The result cements his position as second overall in the general classification heading into the final stage in Madrid.<\/p>\n
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Speaking to the awaiting press after the stage, the Portuguese rider relayed his contentment at having pushed Vingegaard to the limit in this year\u2019s Vuelta. <\/p>\n
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Almeida: \u201cWe did what we could, so we can be satisfied with it. We tried to make the race as hard as possible to see what was possible, we had nothing to lose. But of course, I believed until the end. <\/p>\n
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\u201cIn that last kilometre when Vingegaard attacked, I felt that I could not really follow and he was stronger. I have not been feeling great, but it is what it is, and I think that we can still be proud of our three weeks. <\/p>\n
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\u201cWe considered to attack but in the end I just didn\u2019t have the legs. I tried to put a hard pace, as hard as I could, but in the end this just wasn\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a stage 20 results <\/p>\n
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1. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) 3:56:23<\/p>\n
2. Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) +11\u2033<\/p>\n
3. Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +13\u2033<\/p>\n
5. Jo\u00e3o Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +22\u2033<\/p>\n
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Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a general classification after stage 20<\/p>\n
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1. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) 72:53:57<\/p>\n
2. Jo\u00e3o Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +1:16<\/p>\n
3. Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) +3:11<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jo\u00e3o Almeida delivered a valiant effort today in Stage 20 of La Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, finishing fifth on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-138606","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\/138606","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=138606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}