Brandon Rivera pulled off a brilliant ride to take third place on the uphill sprint at Ruta del Sol, while at Volta ao Algarve Laurens De Plus held off for a brilliant third place.
Rivera bounced back superbly from a pair of crashes on Wednesday's opening stage, and was able to follow a series of accelerations on an undulating stage two test.
Heading to the finish in a select group of five, Rivera was out-sprinted by Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling), but held off Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates – XRG), Clement Berthet (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Enric Mas (Movistar) into Torredelcampo.
Axel Laurance had been on the attack in the early going, and was present in the chasing group of 12 behind, ultimately crossing the line in 15th place.
On day two in the Algarve all eyes were on the Alto Da Foia summit finish. The Grenadiers rode well together on the approach, with Sam Watson kicking things off with an acceleration on the early slopes.
De Plus was full of riding and pushed on with 8.5km to go. His move dragged along three more riders, with the Belgian joined by Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates- XRG), Neilson Powless (EF Education – EasyPost) and Luca Vergallito (Alpecin Deceuninck).
With the peloton closing in behind, in the final kilometre Christen pushed on, with De Plus giving chase. The Swiss rider was bridged across to by team-mate Joao Almeida, with the pair crossing the line together seven seconds ahead of De Plus. The result sees the Grenadier move into an early third overall with three days remaining.
After crossing the line, De Plus said: “I’m really happy with the start of the season, I raced on instinct and third place is not bad.
“It was very tactical, I have to say UAE Team Emirates rode really well and I was in a small lead group with one or two guys from Bora and Visma who wanted to be up the road for their leaders Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard, so I was doing most of the work. In the end Christen dropped me.
“I tried to go for it. I will do my best and hopefully I can keep doing what I’m doing.”
The team were also in action on an exciting day of racing at the UAE Tour. Crosswinds split and brought the peloton back together on numerous occasions, with the eventual bunch sprint ensuring Josh Tarling was able to retain second place overall, in addition to the Young Rider's Jersey.
Michael Leonard hit out early and spent the day in a two-man breakaway alongside Dorde Duric (Team Solution Tech - Vini Fantini).