This year’s field is a little different because it contains one superstar, Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), and one former super-domestique targeting Grand Tour GC wins, João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates–XRG).
Evenepoel wants to keep winning
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.
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’s clear that one issue Red Bull wanted to deal with early in their work with the Olympic time trial champion was his self-confidence.
His performance and his body language in last year’s Tour called into question, in my mind, his mental fitness for challenging Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard. As did his subsequent behaviour in the Rwanda Road Race World Championship, in which, after falling well behind Pogačar on a tough climb, he switched bikes twice before getting his act together and finishing second to Pogačar.
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 – 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.
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 Garbí (5.1 km @ 7.1%, with ramps over 13% at the bottom) on stage 5. But they are short enough that he shouldn’t lose too much time to Almeida if he hasn’t 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–Pollença last Saturday and easily beating his only challenger, Mathys Rondel (Tudor Pro Cycling), on the short ascent to the finish.
“It was the right decision to race three races in Mallorca and make them as long and as hard as possible,” Evenepoel said after that race. “That’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.”
Almeida looking to the Giro and Vuelta
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’s superstar, Pogačar, 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 Pogačar 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’s Vuelta to Vingegaard. Interestingly, in the one Tour de France he completed, in 2024, Almeida finished fourth, just 45 seconds behind Evenepoel, though he had worked at helping his leader win the race.
Almeida has not raced in earnest since last year’s 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’s 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. That’s just another reason why he should win this race.
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 Iván Romeo and Cian Uijtdebroeks (both Movistar) – two young riders looking to break into the big time and both headed for the Tour.
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 Škoda Green Jersey. He and Pedersen will be going for the same stages, so we could see fireworks.
