Upside-down world: Ayuso and Seixas critical after strong Algarve time trials, while Almeida is oddly satisfied

Seixas beat Ayuso in Thursday’s summit sprint, but thanks to bonus seconds from stage 1, Lidl-Trek’s Spaniard still pulled on the overall leader’s jersey. Seixas, meanwhile, paired his stage win with the white jersey as best young rider.

Curiously, neither rider had to wear those jerseys in Friday’s individual time trial. Ayuso explained afterwards that the organisers allowed them to ride in their own kit, as the Volta ao Algarve is “only” a preparation race — and with testing time trial set-ups at this point of the season considered so important.

So in their fastest skinsuits, Ayuso and Seixas went up against one another — and against Filippo Ganna’s benchmark. The INEOS Grenadiers star won the time trial, but only by five seconds from Ayuso. Seixas delivered another standout ride in fourth, 13 seconds down.

Ayuso now defends a seven-second lead over Seixas in the general classification. “I’m really happy that I was competitive, although it’s not great that I’m second again,” he said. “But if you look at the GC, it’s a good day — we can build on that.”

The Spaniard also praised Ganna as “one of the best time triallists in the world”. “That’s why I’m really satisfied with my performance,” Ayuso added. “I didn’t really have doubts, but you never know how it’ll go in a race.” He also had a heart-in-mouth moment in a technical corner, nearly going down

Seixas looked like one of the rides of the day, yet the young Frenchman from Decathlon seemed far from delighted with fourth place on the stage. “It’s a bit of a disappointment,” he admitted. “It’s a good performance if you look at the times, but I didn’t take enough risks.”

He said he held back on “a few dangerous sections”. “In Sierra Nevada — where, because of the weather, I often couldn’t train outside — I should have worked more on bike handling and time trial technique,” Seixas explained. “But in the end, I’m still competitive.”

The rider who wasn’t competitive, at least by expectations, was João Almeida of UAE Team Emirates–XRG. The Portuguese GC man ended up a surprise tenth, 43 seconds down on Ganna — and, crucially, conceding significant time to both Ayuso and Seixas. In the overall standings, Almeida now trails the race lead by around three quarters of a minute.

“I did my best and I think I rode pretty well,” said Almeida, runner-up at last year’s Vuelta a España. “The others were just faster. I expected to lose some time, but not that much. Ayuso is in top form. There’s nothing more I can do about it.”

And what did the stage winner have to say? Ganna explained that he felt stronger as the time trial went on: “In the final I felt faster. The first part was a little bit technical and I tried to not take too many risks.”