Refresh
Just three seconds behind Vingegaard is another fearsome time trialist, and legend of the sport – Primož Roglič. The Slovenian has won countless stage races in the past, and many of them thanks to time gained in time trials like this one.
Instead, it’s the two next best riders on GC who UAE Team Emirates will be worried about. Jonas Vingegaard might have been short of his best on stage two, but we all know his quality against the clock. 20 seconds to Christen and 16 seconds to Almeida is a deficit a rider like him can certainly close.
Neither of the three men immediately behind Christen and Almeida on GC are known for their time trialing. Laurens De Plus (at 7 seconds), António Morgado (14 seconds) and Luca Vergallito (20 seconds) therefore won’t be expecting to take the overall win, though you can neve know for sure when things are so tight at the top.
The man most likely to take the overall lead from Christen is his UAE Team Emirates teammate João Almeida. Unlike Christen, Almeida is a very accomplished time trialist, and looked in searing form on stage two’s summit finish, and probably would have won the stage were he riding against rather than with Christen.
It’ll be a few hours before Christen sets off, at 17.20 GMT. But the time trial has now officially started, with lanterne rouge Pedro Andrade off the start ramp and onto the course.
Then again, if he’s improved enough in road stages to be leading the GC, we can only assume he’ll be better against the clock too. Plus, he’ll have an incentive to ride hard that was missing in those rides last year. For someone as young as 20-years-old, we don’t really have much of an idea what he is capable of.
What are his chances? His performances in time trials last year suggests he will lose time today — third place at the Swiss national championships behind renowned specialists Stefan Küng and Stefan Bissegger, and 9th at the Tour of Poland time trial, were the standout results. Aside from that, he tended to finish somewhere between 13th and 33rd.
So, onto the Volta ao Algarve, for what must be the biggest day of Jan Christen’s fledgling career so far. He’s made it to the final stage of the race in the yellow jersey, and now faces the task of defending his slender lead on the final day’s climatic time trial.
Before we look ahead to this stage, be sure to catch up on the action at the UAE Tour, which came to a close this morning with the usual mountain top finish at Jebel Hafeet.
One rider missing from that 159 is Arnaud De Lie. The Belgian, who finished 4th yesterday and 3rd the day before, dropped out of the race overnight.
In 20 minutes, the first of 159 riders will set off from Salir to begin this final time trial stage of the 2025 Volta Ao Algarve.
Welcome to Cyclingnews’ live coverage of stage 5 at the Volta ao Algarve
