Almeida climbed off before the start of stage 5 in Poland, one of three UAE Team Emirates-XRG riders forced out by the same pile-up.
The team announced the withdrawal on Friday morning, with Benoit Cosnefroy and Sebastian Molano also heading home from the race.
The crash struck on Thursday’s stage to Karpacz, on wet roads roughly 40 kilometres from the finish, and dragged a large group down with it.
Commissaires neutralised the peloton while riders received medical attention, and Bart Lemmen went on to win the stage as Almeida trailed home well outside the leading group with visible road rash down his left side.
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He initially wanted to carry on.
“I don’t feel well. I have pain in my knee and ankle, but I think I’ll be fine. I probably managed to avoid fractures,” Almeida told reporters at the finish.
“Yes, I hope to be at tomorrow’s stage start,” he added.
That plan lasted a night. Team doctors cleared him of broken bones, but the decision was taken to send him home rather than push another day through the pain in the last big race before the Vuelta.
A season already unravelling
Almeida had arrived in Poland trying to piece together form he has not held all year. Illness knocked him out of Paris-Nice in the spring, blunted him at the Volta a Catalunya and eventually forced UAE to walk away from their planned leadership project at the Giro d’Italia.
He raced only sparingly through May and June before returning to competition in the summer.
The Tour de Pologne was meant to be the sharpener. Instead it has cost him a week of racing and left him with a wound to nurse.
15 days to Monaco
The Vuelta a Espana starts in Monaco on 22 August with a 9-kilometre individual time trial and runs to Granada on 13 September. Almeida had been listed as co-leader for UAE alongside Tadej Pogacar, the reigning Tour de France champion and pre-race favourite for the one Grand Tour still missing from his palmares.
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The Slovenian is not the only variable in the field. Defending champion Jonas Vingegaard remains a doubt as he recovers from collarbone surgery after crashing out of the Tour de France, leaving four-time Vuelta winner Primoz Roglic, Enric Mas, Felix Gall, Mattias Skjelmose and Mads Pedersen as the other expected GC names on the start line.
Almeida finished second overall at last year’s Vuelta. What arrives in Monaco on 22 August will be a rider who has spent 15 days recovering from a road accident rather than fine-tuning his climbing legs. UAE have not signalled any change to their Vuelta plans.
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