Portuguese Joao Almeida (UAE) won the 16th stage of the Tour of Italy on Tuesday at the top of Monte Bondone where Briton Geraint Thomas (Ineos) took over the leader’s pink jersey after this first mountain meeting of the third week .
It is the first victory in a Grand Tour for Almeida, who flew less than five kilometers from the finish with the winner of the Tour de France 2018.
Unable to follow his two main rivals for the final victory, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) finished third and conceded almost 30 seconds with the bonuses.
The Frenchman Thibaut Pinot, dropped 9 km from the finish, is one of the other big losers of the day and finishes 3:26 from the winner, seeing his hopes of a podium fly away.
His teammate at Groupama-FDJ, Bruno Armirail, gave up only a few hectometres before him after having held off the best for a long time in the interminable final climb. The French conceded more than four minutes and logically gave up his pink jersey.
Geraint Thomas, who lost a new teammate after the retirement of Frenchman Pavel Sivakov, had already worn the leader’s tunic for four days in this Giro before abandoning it at Armirail.
In the general classification, the British veteran, who turns 37 on Thursday, is now 18 seconds ahead of Almeida and 29 seconds over Roglic.
A pure general classification rider, Almeida won, at 24, the best victory of his career after finishing second four times in a Giro stage.
Renowned for his wait-and-see style, the Portuguese took the initiative this time before being replaced by Thomas.
Almeida had finished fourth in the Giro in 2020 after wearing the pink jersey for 15 days, and sixth in 2021.
Last year, he had to give up because of a positive Covid-19 test on the morning of the 18th stage when he was fourth.
