João Almeida is the best stage racer this year, but will go to the Tour de France as Tadej Pogačar’s understudy - what’s next?

Who is the most successful male GC rider this year? It’s not Remco Evenepoel, who’s yet to win a stage race in 2025, nor Jonas Vingegaard, who has only won the Volta ao Algarve, although both of whom have been affected by injury. Simon Yates won the Giro d’Italia, but it’s not him. It’s not even Tadej Pogačar, he of winning everything he can, who has won two WorldTour stage races this year - the UAE Tour and the Critérium du Dauphiné.

It’s João Almeida, Pogačar’s teammate at UAE Team Emirates-XRG, who has won Itzulia Basque Country, the Tour de Romandie, and the Tour de Suisse this season. Now, there are caveats there, there must be - the riders who have joined him on the podiums at these races have been Enric Mas and Max Schachmann at Itzulia, Lenny Martinez and UAE’s Jay Vine at Romandie, and Kévin Vaquelin and Oscar Onley at Suisse. While Almeida can only beat what is in front of him, none of these six rank inside the UCI top 10 ranking, and cycling’s GC ‘big four’ - Evenepoel, Vingegaard, Primož Roglič and Pogačar - were all absent.

Adam Becket

News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. This piece is part of The Leadout, a newsletter series from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As ever, email adam.becket@futurenet.com - should you wish to add anything, or suggest a topic.

And yet, midway through 2025, Almeida sits top of the pile. He won three stages at the Tour de Suisse, two in dominant fashion, with the final day time trial particularly impressive, with the 10km with 836 metres of climbing completed at an average speed of 21km/h. If he were at almost any other team, he would surely go to the Tour de France as a leader, and as a favourite for the podium, if not overall victory.

However, the 26-year-old is not at another team. He is one of the bulging stable of top GC riders at UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and unless anything happens, will be working at the Tour in support of Pogačar.

This is clear, undeniable. It was what Almeida mentioned unprompted in his post-victory interview at Suisse on Sunday. "I'll have time to enjoy this win and I'll be ready for the Tour de France," he said. "I'll support Tadej Pogačar there and hope we can get more great wins."

This is the lot of a second-tier GC rider at UAE, a squad with seemingly an endless supply of them. Pogačar leads, but then there is Juan Ayuso, Isaac del Toro, Almeida, Adam Yates, Brandon McNulty, Vine, Pavel Sivakov, Pablo Torres and Jan Christen. Welcome to the age of the super super-team, where talent can be stacked up endlessly. Almeida and Ayuso were quite recently young talents, but they are not the youngest anymore, with Torres, Del Toro and Christen breathing down their necks.

With Pogačar still at the top, and seemingly only getting better, not slowing, there are only a limited number of slots to place these top riders throughout the season. There are just three Grand Tours, and Pogačar will ride the Tour and Vuelta a España looking for overall victory this year, limiting it even further. Last year, he won both the Giro and the Tour. It’s slim pickings for anyone who wants to prove themselves on the biggest stage.

Almeida is caught between the best - Pogačar - and those coming up the ranks. 2025 looks like the year he has finally blossomed into the stage racer he long promised to be, from his long spell in pink at the Giro in 2020 onwards. However, he also seems like he is in arrested development. As long as he is at UAE, and Pogačar is still Pogačar, he won’t be able to be the absolute leader, and his opportunities are slim. This is a shame for fans, too, with the prospect of an unleashed Almeida an exciting prospect for us as much as the Portuguese rider himself.

Perhaps Almeida is happy with this state of affairs - he will be well remunerated, he gets to ride for the best team in the world, and has won nine times this season, including those three stage races. He will understudy to the best rider in the world next month, maybe the best ever, and you never know when he might be needed. I just wonder how long he can be happy with it - surely every rider wants to be the undisputed leader at the Tour de France.

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