Oscar narrowly avoided an encore
Wednesday was Portugal's day in Switzerland... once again. João Almeida's (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) second comeback in the local Vuelta was a top-class performance, with the Portuguese rider taking advantage of his foray into the Alps to attack all the competition and win in Piuro, with a solo of almost 50 kilometres. Despite the great performance, which earned him his sixth victory of the season, Bota Lume remained far from the lead, due to the delay caused in the first stage. Even so, seventh place, 2.07 minutes behind Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) gave room to dream of an epic comeback, given how much still remained to be covered.
“It was a strange day… almost two hours with a super fast breakaway, averaging 53 km/h. If we had someone in front, the idea was to bridge the gap, but we didn’t. We had nothing to lose, so I said to them [teammates]: ‘Let’s try, guys. I feel good today’. We did what we had to do and it went well. We are happy. Three kilometres from the finish [of the Splügenpass] was where some difference could be made. The altitude (2,000 metres) could start to make itself felt. Unfortunately, the headwind all the way up wasn’t an advantage, but we had to try. We are more than two minutes behind, so we need to be realistic. It won’t be easy to win the overall and even the podium will be difficult. We have nothing to lose and we have to keep trying. There is nothing else we can do”, said the Portuguese rider at the end of the stage.
The queen stage of this edition was scheduled for this Thursday, with four first category climbs, the last of which coincided with the finish line in Santa Maria de Calanca. Until then, the peloton had 183.5 kilometres ahead of them and an elevation gain of over 3,600 metres. The San Bernardino Pass was the longest climb, at 7.5 kilometres and with an average gradient of 6%, and came at the end of a climb of almost 45 kilometres. The last 20 kilometres were reserved for the Castaneda climb (4.5 km, 9.8%), which was climbed twice and has gradients of 13%.
#tds2025 – Stage 5???? La Punt-Chamues-ch???? Santa Maria in Calanca?????????♂️ 183.5 Km ???? Weather: Light rain????️ 24°C (app 25°C, min 15°C – max 27°C)☁️ Clou.: 84%, vis.: 93%???? Hum.: 54%????️ Wind: 3.2 km/h NW (max: 11 km/h NNE)
Route: https://t.co/oPGH2UY12K pic.twitter.com/KIN0ZPV25P
— La Flamme Rouge (@laflammerouge16) June 19, 2025
The trailing climbers took advantage of this new mountainous incursion to join the day's breakaway, as was the case with Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Javier Romo (Movistar), Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) and Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana). With Emirates taking over the chase at the entrance to the final circuit, the main group began to break and Grégoire lost contact early on, leaving the lead in play. Ben O'Connor (Jayco AlUla) followed and, within the last 500 meters, Almeida moved to the front of the group, taking over the pace. At the front, Bilbao, Powless and Vlasov were caught on the flat stage before the final foray towards the finish.
At the start of the climb, the group accelerated and Bota Lume ended up giving up some space, starting the traditional Almeidada. At the front, Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) decided to attack and only Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) managed to keep up with his pace, counterattacking shortly after. Behind, Almeida recovered from his suffering, overtook everyone and went after the British rider, catching him in the final metres. In the sprint decider, Onley proved to be more explosive and secured an important victory over the Portuguese rider by just a few centimetres. With this result, Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) took the lead, 29 seconds ahead of Alaphilippe and 39 seconds ahead of the Portuguese rider, who made it onto the podium.
BY THE TUBULAR ????????
Oscar Onley beats Joao Almeida by a quarter at the end of Santa Maria in Calanca. Kevin Vauquelin, new leader with 39" on Portuguese.
????♂️ You have seen it on @Eurosport_ES and @StreamMaxES . #tds2025 pic.twitter.com/Yff13v8APB
— Eurosport.es (@Eurosport_ES) June 19, 2025
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