HOW FAR CAN JOÃO GO?
The 2020 season was a second consecutive year of breakthrough performances by young riders, from Tadej Pogacar at the Tour, through Remco Evenepoel in every stage race he entered, to Marc Hirschi at Flèche Wallonne. And in his first year as a professional cyclist, João Almeida led the Giro d’Italia for 15 days, the longest any Portuguese rider has spent in a grand tour leader’s jersey. In a year disrupted by a global pandemic, the 22-year-old finished fourth at his first grand tour. He never quite looked like winning it, but for a long, long time, he also looked nothing like losing it.
It might have looked like a perfectly executed plan by his Deceuninck-Quick Step team, only Almeida wasn’t supposed to be leading his team at the Giro. The even more precocious Evenepoel was to be the Belgian team’s GC option, until he crashed and broke his pelvis at Il Lombardia. Thrust into the limelight, Almeida rode out of his skin from day one and set the tone for a Giro that was all about youth. Second in the opening day’s time trial on a very windy
