UAE Team Emirates teammates Adam Yates and João Almeida battled it out in today’s largely uphill 15.7km time trial to Villars-sur-Ollon, with Yates winning out, as the British rider defied even his own expectations to hold off his teammate’s challenge.
At the first checkpoint, Yates had only shed seven seconds to Almeida, a deficit he turned into a lead on the way up, crossing the second checkpoint three seconds ahead. Almeida would end his day in the hot seat, having set a time of 33:24, 20 seconds quicker than anyone else.
But it wouldn’t be enough to overhaul Yates, who crossed the line just over two minutes later, ceding a mere eight seconds at the finish and, with it, securing the second WorldTour stage race of his career.
Behind the lead duo, 2023 champion Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) rounded out the stage podium at 21 seconds down, in the process leapfrogging Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) to take the final spot on the GC podium at 3:02 down on Yates.
“About two days to go, I wasn’t sure if I could do it,” Yates said after the stage. “Obviously, I had the two time checks with João in front of me and I knew he was going to accelerate a little bit there in the end.
“Actually, I just couldn’t accelerate, I was already over the limit so I just tried to hold the pace and thankfully it was enough,” said Yates as tried to catch his breath.
“I’m still out of breath because it was such a hard climb, but one thing I had in the back of my mind for a while was the 2019 Tirreno-Adriatico, where I lost the TT on the last day by one second, and this had lived rent-free in my head for many years so it’s finally good to win a race and win it with a TT like this.”
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