Adam Yates wins Tour de Suisse, UAE Team Emirates teammate João Almeida victorious in stage 8 time trial

The battle for the general victory on the 2024 Tour de Suisse would come all the way down to the ultimate climb of the eight-day race, with UAE Team Emirates teammates Adam Yates and João Almeida battling on the stage 8 time trial, run on a largely uphill 15.7km course to Villars-sur-Ollon.

In the tip, Yates would win out, the Briton defying even his personal expectations to carry off his teammate’s problem. He had predicted after stage 7 that Almeida would take “nearly a minute” on him and wrest the yellow jersey from his shoulders on the final.

At the primary checkpoint, coming after 5km of flat roads, Yates had solely shed seven seconds to Almeida, a deficit he changed into a lead on the best way up, crossing the second checkpoint three seconds forward.

Almeida would finish his day within the scorching seat, having set a time of 33:24, 20 seconds faster than anybody else. That could be ok for the stage 8 win, the workforce’s fourth in as many days, giving each males two apiece.

But it wouldn’t be sufficient to overtake stage 5 and seven victor Yates, who crossed the road simply over two minutes later, ceding a mere eight seconds on the end and with it, securing the second WorldTour stage race of his profession.

Behind the lead pairing, who’ve dominated a lot of the race, 2023 champion Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) rounded out the stage podium at 21 seconds down, within the course of leapfrogging Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) to take the ultimate spot on the GC podium at 3:02 down on Yates.

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