João Almeida blew the race apart on the brutal slopes of Izua – Arrate, dropping all his rivals with a powerful solo attack in Itzulia Basque Country stage 4.
Itzulia Basque Country this year was without superstars like Roglič, Evenepoel and Vingegaard after last year’s horrific crash, and featured a field with strong GC riders such as João Almeida and the UAE superteam, Mattias Skjelmose and Florian Lipowitz. The stage was tough. Oscar Onley burned 2,742 kilojoules over 3:28h, averaging 14.10 kj/kg/h before the decisive climb.
Izua–Arrate (3.35 km at 12.30%) was a perfect climb to launch an attack. A small breakaway formed with Sepp Kuss, Quinn Simmons, Marc Soler, Ben Healy and other strong riders, but they stood no chance against the Bahrain lead peloton before the steep ramps of Izua.
As the climb began, Bahrain Victorious went on the offensive with Pello Bilbao and Santiago Buitrago, but it didn’t work out. The steep gradients suited Almeida, who prefers to ride at a constant tempo. His strategy paid off as he distanced everyone and opened up a 30-second gap over the chasing group, which included all the key GC contenders in the race. Almeida produced 6.93 ᵉW/kg for 12:25 minutes on Izua, the best performance in a race missing the biggest GC names.
Almeida descended quickly and held his lead, winning by 28 seconds ahead of the GC group, where his teammate Isaac Del Toro took the bunch sprint. With UAE fielding by far the strongest team and Almeida being the biggest GC name in the race, they are clear favourites to hold the jersey until the end. Still, after the Portuguese rider narrowly missed out in Valenciana and other close races, anything can happen on Stage 6, which is typically full of chaos in Itzulia.
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