Following the individual time trials on Tuesday and Monday’s rest day, there was plenty of time for Eulalio to become well-acquainted with the Maglia Rosa.<\/p>\n
And it was on his rest day that Eulalio received an unexpected phone call. TNT Sports commentator Rob Hatch relayed the story. <\/p>\n
He said: “Afonso Eulalio, 24 years of age from Portugal. Two years ago, he was a Portuguese domestic pro, riding in a third division team. He led the Volta Portugal. <\/p>\n
“A couple of days ago, on the rest day, his phone rang. It was an unknown number, you probably wouldn\u2019t answer it normally, because it\u2019s often the mobile phone company, saying, ‘oh we have some new offers, want to extend your contract?’. Something like that. <\/p>\n
“He didn\u2019t answer it, and it proved to be a bit of a mistake. It was only the president of Portugal [Antonio Jose Seguro] phoning him to congratulate him. <\/p>\n
![\"picture\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-a9b25a47-9047-4272-ba7e-cda7d55d003d-85-2560-1440.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Narvaez betters Mas in two-way sprint finish to clinch stage hat-trick <\/p>\n
Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n
“He missed a call, quite literally, from the president. What a story that is! He can dine out on that more than the Maglia Rosa for a few years.”<\/p>\n
Antonio Jose Seguro is the president of Portugal, and, per Record<\/a>, Eulalio also received contact from former AC Milan star and now Benfica club president Rui Costa.<\/p>\n Hatch suggested Portugal’s most iconic sporting figure, Cristiano Ronaldo, should soon be on the phone.<\/p>\n “He might be getting a phone call off Ronaldo soon, you never know,” Hatch said. “We know Cristiano is an avid watcher of the Giro d\u2019Italia. If you are watching, pick up the phone, give him a buzz, mate.”<\/p>\n In quotes reported by Record, Eulalio addressed the mishap with missing the phone call.<\/p>\n “The president tried to call me and left me a message,” he said. “I think I must be doing something right. These days, I have so many calls and messages that I didn’t answer, and, a few hours later, I received the message.”<\/p>\n Eulalio spoke to TNT Sports after he retained the GC lead following Tuesday’s Stage 10, and confessed his surprise at staying at the top of the pack despite time trials not being his favoured format.<\/p>\n Did Mas pay the price for being ‘nice guy’ in sprint finish with Narvaez?<\/p>\n Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n “The first moment I start to think it\u2019s not true, what they tell me,” he said. “But in the last part they tell me two minutes, I have 30 seconds to keep the jersey, to keep fighting, but in the first moments they start to tell me this I don\u2019t believe I did it.”<\/p>\n Narvaez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) won Stage 11, his third stage victory of this year’s Giro, beating Enric Mas (Movistar) in a two-way sprint finish<\/a>. Add TNT Sports as a preferred source here<\/a>\u00a0to enjoy more content like this.Stream every stage of the 2026 Giro d’Italia live on TNT Sports and HBO Max<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘What a story that is!’ – How Giro leader Eulalio missed hugely important phone call Video credit: TNT…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,190521,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-596065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-giro-ditalia-2026","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"picture\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-7da51f14-df6c-47bf-ad11-9bf9a947a3ee-85-2560-1440.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n