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The Portuguese cyclist João Almeida (Deceuninck-QuickStep) is the new leader of the Volta a Itália, after the third stage, which ended on the top of Mount Etna and which was won by the Ecuadorian Johnatan Caicedo (Education First).
Almeida has the same time as Caicedo overall, but has a hundredth of a second advantage in the first time trial. Spain’s Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-McLaren) is third in 37 seconds.
The 22-year-old became the second Portuguese to wear the pink Giro jersey, after Acácio da Silva, in 1989.
31 years ago, Acácio da Silva, who also led the Tour de France, wore his jersey for just one day, losing it in the third stage to Italy’s Silvano Contini, after a team time trial.
After a long escape, Caicedo cut the goal, installed on Etna, 150 kilometers after the start in Enna, in 4: 02.33, 21 seconds less than the Italian Giovanni Visconti (Vini Zabú-KTM) and 30 than the Dutch Harm Vanhoucke (Lotto Soudal).
On Monday the fourth stage will be played, between Catania and Villafranco Tirrena, over a 140 kilometer route, with only a third category count in the middle of the draw.
“I still can’t believe it, I’m super happy”
At the end of the stage, excited, the young man from Caldas da Rainha explained to the journalists that he still could not “believe” what he had just done. “I’m super happy, speechless,” he shot.
He knew that he had been “very close”, that he had cut the goal “with just over a minute” to the winner of the draw, the Ecuadorian Jonathan Caicedo (First Education), after which he would wait until he saw the ‘pink jersey’ ‘With emotion”.
Looking to the future, João Almeida defines an immediate priority: “rest well”. Then, he said, he is “giving his best in the coming days”, starting with the defense of the pink jersey already in the fourth stage, on Tuesday, between Catania and Villafranco Tirrena, on a 140 km route.
