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João Almeida - Bota Lume

Page 6 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
He also said this yesterday "I expect to be at the best form of my life".


Let's see, Masnada seems to be in an amazing form and he performed consistently worst than Almeida... So if he really is at his best:

Top 10 (ok)
Top 5 (well done, amazing)
Top 3 (Owhhhhh unbelievable good) :)
 
Then we can say Bernal is nowhere close to his former level, Buchmann has no chance, Etc. I'm not claiming he'll be beter, but it's still possible. I'll wait for week 3, that's when it counts.

I am indeed sceptical that Bernal will be back to his best and that Buchmann is a serious contender for the win. I'd like nothing more than for Almeida to go well this Giro as I became a fan last year. However, I have a suspicion he might sacrifice some of the exiting racing we saw from him last year on hilly stages etc, in favour of more conservative racing. I think it would be a waste if he just ends up suffering and limiting time losses the whole race for a top 10. I'm also worried there will be friction in the team as I can see Masnada and Evenepoel wanting to be allowed off the leash.

For the record, I'm not claiming that it's impossible that he'll be better this year. I'm just looking at recent performances and thinking about what's most likely.
 
Let's see, Masnada seems to be in an amazing form and he performed consistently worst than Almeida... So if he really is at his best:

I actually thought there were one or two stages at the end of last year's Giro where Masnada did look better. He might have ended up finishing behind Almedia on those stages, but that's because he was working for him. Masnada also appears to have improved this year based on Romandie.

Nevertheless, I hope Almedia is right that he is in the form of his life and goes well.
 
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I have to agree with the consensus that it was not a good move by Almeida to use a football manager. Like Wiggins says, cycling is a small world. What goes around comes around and it looks like sticking with his current manager will come back to bite him in the ass.


I will wait and see what his bank balance is at the end of his career before judging his manager.
 
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Was surprised to hear how young Almeida still is. Can't say I heard about him before Giro 2020 but I could see him improving to become a better version of Porte.
Even if you didn't know about him during the U23, surely you knew he was Evenepoel's right hand man in Algarve and Burgos? Especially in Algarve he was a great aid for Evenepoel. In Burgos not so much, but he did a great personal GC there (3rd). He then did a good Tour de l'Ain as well, before the Giro.
 
Even if you didn't know about him during the U23, surely you knew he was Evenepoel's right hand man in Algarve and Burgos? Especially in Algarve he was a great aid for Evenepoel. In Burgos not so much, but he did a great personal GC there (3rd). He then did a good Tour de l'Ain as well, before the Giro.
I almost never watch those races. :sweatsmile:

Sad to see him lose 4 minutes today. I do think the current situation with him leaving QS can't help. Feeling confidence is important too,
 
It's one thing not being able to go with the best on a long climb, but dropping like this on a medium stage...
I assume the weather really took his toll on him and he didn't see any way to stay close to the main GC guys... and at that point he knew DQS would not support him for GC anymore and he just let go - to help Evenepoel in the coming time or maybe to even go for a stage himself.
 
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I have to agree with the consensus that it was not a good move by Almeida to use a football manager. Like Wiggins says, cycling is a small world. What goes around comes around and it looks like sticking with his current manager will come back to bite him in the ass.

Just saw this, so sorry for the late reply! But Wiggins is misinterpreting there. Lefevre will hardly havel talked/negotiated with Mendes. Mendes is NOT Almeidas rider agent. That would be Joao Correia. The agreement between Corso Agency and Mendes is only focussed on commercial marketing and sponsorship deals, mainly in Portugal. They want to build up Almeida (and to a lesser extent Guerreiro) as their cycling 'stars' with which they can do gig marketing deals etc. and use the network of Mendes agency for that, as he has plenty contacts etc from his work in football.

All things concerning rider agents, contracts with teams etc. is still firmly in the hands of Corso with Mendes not involved.
 
Bora: Joao Almannda - The Portugese brother.

Disappointing performance from him yesterday, and it is also a problem for Deceuninck in general. Having two great contenders was pretty much the only advantage they had, but now they face a lot of competion from teams who seem at least as decent as they are.

Just a bad day... From an interview made and published today he said that he usually underperforms in that kind of weather conditions and that he made a mistake by not feeding properly during the stage, so he cracked in the last 3 kms...it was very unexpected to see him losing more than 4 minutes to the others GC contenders in a stage that had the right profile for Almeida to do well... he lost in 3 kms as much time as he lost at last years Stelvio Stage.

Since then however he's showing good form, he's rolling quite easy as we saw at the final climb at stage 9, keeping up with Bardet, Caruso, Soler, Martinez, Buchmann, Formolo, Carthy, Yates... and it seemed to me that he lost a couple of seconds just by being worried about Remco´s position, he was seen looking behind several times trying to find where the hell was Remco.

He has no pressure atm, just to work for Remco and if Remco goes well he will move up some places at the GC. Perhaps with a little bit of luck he can get a Top10 GC with the last ITT.

He still has a lot to improve at the high mountains but the way he paces himself at those high mountains stages with only 22 years old impress me.
 
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I think he may have had his bad day in the crap weather and starts to improve. I wonder if he'll be allowed to get back into the race if Remco starts to fall back. Be interesting if he becomes QS best climber during the back of the race but has to work for someone else. Time will tell, just like every other rider.
 
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I think he may have had his bad day in the crap weather and starts to improve. I wonder if he'll be allowed to get back into the race if Remco starts to fall back. Be interesting if he becomes QS best climber during the back of the race but has to work for someone else. Time will tell, just like every other rider.

Almeida is not good enough in the big mountains to compete even if he had not lost the time on stage 4.
 
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