I've re-watched the stage and have to say I've changed my point of view a little bit. It was worse than I thought at first. I don't know what took the team and Almeida that much time to drop from the group to help Remco. Maybe Joao's ego, maybe he still thinks he has a bigger chance to finish higher in GC at the end than Remco. Maybe he read about the many definitions of being dropped on this forum and just didn't want to become the guy being dropped. Anyway, whatever the reason, he reacted way to late. After he and Remco made contact, till the finish, Almeida did a great job though.
There is only one small thing that intrigues me... João should have been always next to Remcos and he was not... that's the big question that keeps returning to my head... Sure that Deceunick's director in all the mess at the gravel sections could be confused, sure that the broadcast had a delay but we are talking around 10 minutes between Remco's being dropped and finally being pulled by João and I still find hard to believe that João wouldn't comply with his Team's directors instructions right away!