Almeida bounces back to secures second place at Tour de Suisse

João Almeida delivered a strong performance today at the Tour de Suisse, clinching second place on Stage 3. The 195.6-kilometer race from Aarau to Heiden featured rolling hills and a challenging finish, providing an ideal platform for Almeida to showcase his punchy finishing prowess.

Despite a late surge by Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek), who had formed part of the days’ main breakaway, Almeida managed to secure second place in a reduced sprint finish, just ahead of Oscar Onley (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) .

Almeida : “It was a super fast today. It was quite hard and I decided to give it a try, I guess six seconds in three minutes is not much, but yeah, I gave my best. The team worked really good. So yeah, one less day in the books. I’m looking forward to the days ahead to try and take back more time in the GC though I know it will be difficult. We’ll do our best.”

Jan Christen was aggressive throughout the final half of the stage, igniting the peloton with his trademark attacks. The elastic never broke in the front group which allowed Simmons to build his slight advantage as the kilometres ticked by.

The form shown by Christen is positive following his crash on stage 1, as the local youngster seeks to impress on home soil.

Meanwhile, Felix Grossschartner finished in the main group to keep his high placing on GC, with the Austrian still sitting in 6th place at 1’18” heading into stage 4 from Heiden to Piuro (193.2km). Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ) continues to wear the leaders jersey.

Stage 3 Results

1.Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) 4:39:42

2.Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +18”

3.Oscar Onley (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) s.t

General Classification after stage 3

1.Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ) 11:26:01

2.Kevin Vanquelin (Arkea-B&B) +25”

3.Bart Lemmen (Visma-LAB) +27”

6.Felix Grossschartner (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +1’18”