Tom Pidcock cemented his podium position at the Vuelta a Espana with three stages left as former teammate Filippo Ganna won his second career stage at the race.
Ineos Grenadiers’ Ganna finished the 12.2km time trial in Vallodolid in a blistering time of 13 minutes flat, two years on from his previous Vuelta stage victory in the same city.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates Jay Vine and Joao Almeida finished second and third. King of the Mountains leader Vine was an agonising nine-tenths of a second off Ganna’s time, and Almeida nearly eight seconds back.
The result means Portuguese rider Almeida has clawed another 10 seconds back on race leader Jonas Vingegaard, who finished ninth on the day at 18 seconds behind Ganna. The Dane remains 40 seconds clear of closest challenger Almeida going into the final weekend of the race, setting up a nail-biting finale.
Pidcock produced a fine performance to eke out another three seconds over his rival for the overall podium, Australian Jai Hindley, who now sits 39 seconds off the Briton.
The 26-year-old lost more time to Vingegaard and Almeida and now sits 2’39” off the race leader, having been 2’28” down at the start of the day, but having been expected to lose time to Hindley can consider it another successful day out - and crucially, one step closer to a maiden grand tour podium finish.
“I think that was probably my best ever time trial, looking at the numbers, so can be pretty happy,” Pidcock said afterwards. “We didn’t focus on the time trial before this, so I felt super strong, to be honest. I don’t think there’s many people today who would want to do a longer time trial, to be honest with you!”
Two-time former world time trial champion Filippo Ganna set the fastest time of the early starters and was not to be dislodged despite the best efforts of several big hitters.
Ganna endured a nervy wait in the closing stages with Almeida - one of the race’s best time-triallists - expected to challenge on the pan-flat course, but ultimately unable to overhaul the Italian.
Stage 18 was significantly shortened over safety fears, from the planned 27.2km to 12.2km, with pro-Palestine protests having wreaked havoc on the race so far.
Israel Premier-Tech’s team time trial on stage five was disrupted by people blocking the road, while two riders were brought down in crashes caused by protesters on different stages, including Movistar’s Javier Romo, who was forced to abandon the race the day after crashing on stage 15.
Stage 11’s route in Bilbao was neutralised and no winner declared after demonstrations at the finish, and stage 16 shortened by 8km to avoid further protests, although in that case a winner was declared.
Concerns remain over the viability of the race reaching its final stage in Madrid, although Thursday’s shortened individual time trial passed without incident.
It did however ensure any gaps between the general classification favourites would be minimal. Almeida was one of the major riders to lose out from the curtailing of the stage, having been expected to significantly cut his deficit to Vingegaard on terrain that particularly suits him.
“It’s a pity it wasn’t 27k,” Almeida said afterwards. “We’ll never know, right. I think we can still be pretty satisfied with the outcome, I felt quite strong. As a cyclist, we adapt quite well to any scenario. We do the best we can every day.”
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