João Almeida could be forgiven for cursing his bad luck in the Vuelta a España on Thursday as the Portuguese racer pulled back 11 seconds on overall leader Jonas Vingegaard in the race's third week time trial, but was left wondering if it could have been a whole lot more.
Fears about race security after multiple pro-Palestine protests had caused the partial suspension of two stages meant the Valladolid time trial route was reduced from its original distance of 27.2 kilometres to just 12.2 kilometres.
