The Giro d'Italia loses one of its highly anticipated protagonists: Joao Almeida will not be at the start of the pink race. The announcement comes from the Portuguese rider himself from UAE Emirates XRG with a post on Instagram: "Unfortunately, I won't be able to participate in the Giro d'Italia next month as planned. The illness of recent months has affected my preparation too much and prevented me from being ready in time, which is a shame because it's a race that I love very much. After discussing it with the team, we decided that the best thing would be to take a period of rest and focus on new objectives for the second part of the season. We haven't defined these new objectives yet, but we'll do so calmly in the coming weeks... For now, it's time to rest a bit and gradually get back on track. Good luck to the guys for the Giro, I'll be cheering from home".