No (visible) frustration at UAE this time as Almeida finishes second: Six seconds less in a three-minute gap is nothing

Stage three was won by Simmons, who spent the last 20 kilometers alone and managed to stay ahead of the chasing peloton. The uphill final kilometers saw several attacks from the peloton, but Simmons was never caught. Almeida also tried unsuccessfully. “It was super fast today. It was pretty tough, and I decided to try it,” the Portuguese rider told Cycling Pro Net in his interview after the stage.

“I think it was a good moment when I went. They slowed down a bit. It was less than a kilometer to the finish, so it was nothing special,” Almeida described the final sprint. “I decided to sprint for the bonus seconds in the final.”

In the GC, Almeida is still more than three minutes behind leader Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) in eighteenth place. He moved up eleven places thanks to the bonus seconds he picked up at the finish. “I guess six seconds in three minutes is not much, but I did my best. The team worked well. So yes, on to the next stage.”

And so UAE Emirates-XRG is recovering somewhat, a day after frustrations arose within the team. The gap in the GC is due to the opening stage, where a large breakaway group was given free rein and ultimately gained a lot of time at the finish.

Almeida and co will have highlighted Wednesday's fourth stage in red, where the first serious climbing will occur.