Joao Almeida refuses to give up Maglia Rosa dream: "I'll keep fighting until the end"

Down but far from out, Joao Almeida battled hard on stage 18 of the Giro d'Italia to stay in contact with Primoz Roglic and Geraint Thomas keeping his Maglia Rosa dream alive despite losing time.

“It was a short day, but very intense. It was quite heavy. It wasn't my best performance today," the 24-year-old Portuguese admitted following the conclusion of the stage in his post-race interview. "On the other hand I didn't lose that much time on the other riders.”

Losing a total of twenty one seconds to his main general classification rivals, Almeida now sits in third placed overall, still in contact at just 39 seconds behind the race leader, INEOS Grenadiers' Geraint Thomas.

“It wasn't that bad, I'll keep fighting until the end," says Almeida defiantly. "Maybe tomorrow I will lose more time, maybe not.”