{"id":9121,"date":"2026-02-04T10:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T09:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/?p=9121"},"modified":"2026-02-09T10:20:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T09:20:23","slug":"evenepoel-favoured-to-extend-early-season-win-streak-in-volta-a-la-comunitat-valenciana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2026\/02\/04\/evenepoel-favoured-to-extend-early-season-win-streak-in-volta-a-la-comunitat-valenciana\/","title":{"rendered":"Evenepoel Favoured to Extend Early-Season Win Streak in Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, which kicks off on February 4, has recently been an interesting and highly competitive Pro-level race for riders close to the elite. In other words, it has seen fields packed with riders capable of winning Grand Tour stages now and then, but not with potential Grand Tour winners.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s field is a little different because it contains one superstar, Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe), and one former super-domestique targeting Grand Tour GC wins, Jo\u00e3o Almeida (UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG).<\/p>\n

Evenepoel wants to keep winning<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With his new team, which is as ambitious as he is, Evenepoel is targeting the Tour de France again this year. It will be his third try for the biggest prize in cycling, after a third place in 2024 and a DNF (Did Not Finish) last year due to health issues, poor form, and his wanting not to wreck his plans for the world championships later in the season.<\/p>\n

He has had an early and very successful start to his season, winning three minor races on the island of Mallorca, including a team time trial, in three days, though against lesser opponents than he will be facing in the Valenciana and in the future. It\u2019s clear that one issue Red Bull wanted to deal with early in their work with the Olympic time trial champion was his self-confidence.<\/p>\n

His performance and his body language in last year\u2019s Tour called into question, in my mind, his mental fitness for challenging Tadej Poga\u010dar and Jonas Vingegaard. As did his subsequent behaviour in the Rwanda Road Race World Championship, in which, after falling well behind Poga\u010dar on a tough climb, he switched bikes twice before getting his act together and finishing second to Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n

Having said that, he should win this Volta fairly easily. The stage 2 ITT is right up his alley, and he is the best time trial rider in the world \u2013 though the short distance, 17 km, will prevent him from taking too much time out of his rivals, especially Almeida, who also rides the ITTs very well. And stages 1 and 3 resemble the lumpy one-day Classics at which he excels.<\/p>\n

The two most difficult climbs come in the final two stages: the Alto Miserad (5.4 km @ 9.7%, with double-digit ramps at the top) on stage 4 and the Port del Garb\u00ed (5.1 km @ 7.1%, with ramps over 13% at the bottom) on stage 5. But they are short enough that he shouldn\u2019t lose too much time to Almeida if he hasn\u2019t got his climbing legs yet. But he apparently does, having climbed a longer but gentler slope (14.2 km @ 5.9%) in the Trofeo Andratx\u2013Pollen\u00e7a last Saturday and easily beating his only challenger, Mathys Rondel (Tudor Pro Cycling), on the short ascent to the finish.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the right decision to race three races in Mallorca and make them as long and as hard as possible,\u201d Evenepoel said after that race<\/a>. \u201cThat’s the only way I can make progress. The most important thing now is to maintain this form and even sharpen it a bit. I’ll keep working at a high intensity, which I’ll automatically gain in the upcoming races, by attacking and maintaining the effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almeida looking to the Giro and Vuelta<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For his part, Almeida is this year targeting the two other Grand Tours, the Giro and the Vuelta, and will not be burdened with the task of playing domestique to his team\u2019s superstar, Poga\u010dar, as he was in the past. In other words, this year, his super-team is treating him as an equal in standing, if not ability, to Poga\u010dar and will provide him with the appropriate resources. He has ridden in 10 Grand Tours so far, and his best finish was second in last year\u2019s Vuelta to Vingegaard. Interestingly, in the one Tour de France<\/a> he completed, in 2024, Almeida finished fourth, just 45 seconds behind Evenepoel, though he had worked at helping his leader win the race.<\/p>\n

Almeida has not raced in earnest since last year\u2019s Vuelta, more than five months ago. He had been signed up for the world championship ITT and road race, but he did not start the ITT due to feeling unwell and did not finish the road race for the same reason. So he will be primarily looking to get into shape for the Giro, with the serious prep races coming in March and April. While Evenepoel\u2019s season begins in earnest in April (though he always rides in earnest), with the Amstel Gold Race, the first of three Ardennes Classics he is currently scheduled to ride in. \u00a0That\u2019s just another reason why he should win this race.<\/p>\n

The final reason is that he is simply the best rider of the rest of the field, which includes Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek), who is trying to rescue a promising career gone off the rails since his Giro victory six years ago, and Iv\u00e1n Romeo and Cian Uijtdebroeks (both Movistar) \u2013 two young riders looking to break into the big time and both headed for the Tour.<\/p>\n

This race should also suit Mads Pedersen, a sprinter who can climb the hills that characterise two of the stages. That also applies to Biniam Girmay, who is also with a new team, NSN Cycling, and will be looking to rebound from a bad season and to find the form that led him to win the 2024 Tour de France \u0160koda Green Jersey.<\/a> He and Pedersen will be going for the same stages, so we could see fireworks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, which kicks off on February 4, has recently been an interesting and highly competitive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":9128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-9121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-the-latest"],"yoast_head":"\nEvenepoel Favoured to Extend Win Streak in Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2026\/02\/04\/evenepoel-favoured-to-extend-early-season-win-streak-in-volta-a-la-comunitat-valenciana\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Evenepoel Favoured to Extend Early-Season Win Streak in Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, which kicks off on February 4, has recently been an interesting and highly competitive […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2026\/02\/04\/evenepoel-favoured-to-extend-early-season-win-streak-in-volta-a-la-comunitat-valenciana\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling - 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