Almeida send a message to the rest of the favorites

They

will have to destroy

to get rid of that '

' that already seems sewn to his skin, after

.

The Portuguese is not one of those leaders who reign in current cycling, the kind who look at the potentiometer and use the calculator before deciding what to do.

Almeida, simply, tries to take advantage of any opportunity he has, even if it hardly serves him, like this Tuesday, to bite his pursuers for a couple of seconds.

Two seconds is more than zero, so there he goes, clenches his teeth, smashes the pedals, and attacks.

As simple as that.

Almeida may or may not win the Giro.

Surely, at least

on Sunday in

, it will not support the demands of the

.

He is the first to know, of course, but since the final victory seems difficult, the Portuguese hopes at least that no one forget the huge Giro that he is doing when nobody expected.

At least still.

Because in reality, the least are those two seconds won in

, the important thing is the message it sends.

The determination to shout to the rest of the favorites that he is there, that he is still the leader and that he plans to defend his position tooth and nail.

And by the way, he checks that

falters, that in reality the strongest of

is

, with whom he has three minutes of rent, and there he sees a streak that encourages his aspirations.

There is nothing more effective in war than casting doubt on your enemy.

There were only

, those of the slope prior to the finish line, but they deserved what they experienced in a very long stage, of 229 kilometers, of which 228 lacked history in the peloton.

If something was missing from the Giro, it is one of those gigantic leaks, made up of cyclists who run out of time to shine in the race, to which the peloton gives barracks so that all of them can seek their dream of winning a stage on the grand tour.

At the end of the day, no one was dangerous among the adventurers (

was the best placed in the general, at 20:43 behind the still

) and a final fireworks is looming in which any saving of strength will be necessary.

Among all those escapees, the strongest

, another Slovenian, a late discovery of cycling who achieves his first victory in a big one at the age of 30.

Another time trialist, like

, looking and finding his chance at an online stage of this Giro.

He attacked with

in one of the multiple tacks of the route, precious, and ended up releasing it.

Later

caught up with him

, a cyclist who pointed out vueltomaniac ways and who has stayed on the road, and then things got interesting.

There were 14 kilometers to go to the finish line and there was no greater difficulty than this hillside finish that was going to define everything.

O'Connor is undoubtedly a better climber, but after such a beating it was the fuel reserve that was going to count.

And Tratnik's was far superior, as he proved 600 meters from the glory, when the Slovenian from

changed the pace and left his companion dry and resigned to being second.

Almost 12 minutes later, Almeida appeared there to do the same and claim even more if possible.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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