Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) sprinted to victory on the uphill finish of stage 4 of the Giro d'Italia, grabbing a redemptive win for his team in a ferocious reduced battle to the line after an eventful day in Italy.
The Ecuadorian beat Orluis Aular (Movistar) into second after a huge effort from the Spanish squad, whilst Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) took third – but was rewarded by moving into the maglia rosa as race leader Thomas Silva (XDS-Astana) struggled.
In the finale, Narváez's teammate Jan Christen attempted a late flyer, which was shut down by a huge effort from Matteo Sobrero for Ciccone. Though Lidl-Trek didn't quite grab the win, they do end the day with the pink jersey.
The first stage in Italy was short but ended up very explosive, as Movistar decided to light things up on the single second-category climb of the day, setting a ferocious pace that dispatched with all the sprinters and even gave some GC riders some trouble.
Silva, who won pink on stage 2, suffered early on the 14.4km Cozzo Tunno climb, and finished the stage in 130th place, 12:16 down, ending his historic stint in pink.
Just 42 riders finished in the front group, with the next group on the road finishing almost three minutes down on a day that saw large gaps and GC changes on only the fourth day of racing.
Narváez's triumph was a redemptive one for several reasons, not least because of the misfortune that saw his team lose three riders in the first three stages – after already losing planned GC rider João Almeida pre-race – but it's also his first of the year after a nasty crash at the Tour Down Under ruled him out of the spring.
"It's really big for me, this victory here, coming from three months training in Ecuador," he said at the finish.
"I want to say thanks to my family, my wife, my team. They've been a great support in this time, and obviously, this victory is also for my teammates who crashed on stage 2. They've been working for a while to come here in good condition – we take the victory today, but we were good before stage 2 too, so I think we are a lot happier now.
"Jan [Christen] is a great guy, he was trying to take the maglis rosa. He's a young guy; he needs to learn how to race. He did a great final, and in the end, for me it was just waiting for the sprint," he explained about his teammate's late effort, which ultimately set up his victory.
For Lidl-Trek, it was a day that ended very well but could have been worse, with their GC leader Derek Gee-West forced to chase back on in the final 30km after a mechanical on the descent from the decisive climb.
Despite the large gaps on the day, the damage for GC riders ended up being minimal, as even Egan Bernal (Netcompany Ineos), who struggled on the climb, was able to come back to the front before the finish.
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) finished safely in 18th after a controlled day for Visma, just missing out on bonus seconds at the Red Bull Kilometre.
How it unfolded
Stage 4 rolled out of Catanzaro on Tuesday lunchtime to bring the Giro back to Italian shores. Like the first three stages, there wasn't a particularly long fight for the breakaway – despite the break-friendly parcours of the stage, with one 14.4km climb peaking out 40km from the finish.
It was six riders who quickly got away: Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost), Warren Barguil (Picnic-PostNL Raisin), Johan Jacobs (Groupama-FDJ United), Niklas Larsen (Unibet Rose Rockets), Mattia Bais (Polti-VisitMalta) and Martin Marcellusi (Bardiani CSF-Saber 7).
A notable omission was King of the Mountains Diego Sevilla (Polti-VisitMalta), who was in the break every day in Bulgaria.
It became clear fairly quickly that some teams in the peloton did not want to give this break a chance of surviving to the finish, and they were kept on a tight leash, building a gap of only two minutes in the first 30km. The peloton held it steady for the next long while, never letting the gap grow over around 2:20 for the next 40km towards the base of the climb.
The main story from the first half of the stage was that sprinter Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Premier Tech) abandoned, suffering from the impact of coming down in a crash on stage 1, along with the knee problem that disrupted his spring.
Hitting the base of the 14.4km Cozzo Tunno climb, the gap started coming down rapidly as Movistar started setting a high pace – with Visma lined out at the front of the bunch too – and within only a couple of kilometres the bunch had the slowing break in sight.
The increase in pace also put numerous riders out the back of the bunch, including most of the main sprinters, as teams tried to prevent a sprint finish. The much-plagued Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Intermarché) was the very first to suffer and would later abandon.
Soon, the pink jersey Thomas Silva was also dropped from the main peloton, as up front Rafferty and Bais pushed on alone with still 9km of climbing to go. That didn't last long, though, and they were caught with 50km to go (7km from the top of the climb) by the rampaging Movistar-led bunch.
The Spanish team were not notably close to the pink jersey in the top five, but were one of the most well-represented teams in the raft of riders at 10 seconds on GC, with Enric Mas, Juan Pedro López, Einer Rubio and Javier Romo, and clearly sensed an opportunity. Orluis Aular was also surviving the climb well as a potential sprint option.
With still 2km to climb, Egan Bernal (Netcompany Ineos) appeared to struggle at the back of the bunch, the first GC rider to falter, with Ben Turner dropping back to try and help him return as they went over the top of the climb and onto the descent.
The pink jersey group was six minutes down as they finally crested the top of the climb too, definitively ending Silva's historic streak in the lead of the race.
Movistar kept things under control down the long descent. Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek) had a mechanical on the downhill and ended up joining up with Bernal as they grouped to try to get back on, which they managed to do with 17km to go.
At the Red Bull Kilometre with 11.5km to go, Victor Campenaerts tried to launch Vingegaard to the bonus seconds. However, it was Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) who grabbed the maximum six bonus seconds ahead of Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek).
With such small gaps on GC and the pink jersey up for grabs, there were a lot of riders trying to grab whatever they could to move up the rankings and even into the lead.
In the run-in, Movistar and Visma continued to lead the reduced bunch, which was quite open in terms of who could sprint to the win. It was a tense final few kilometres as teams tried to get organised for a fast finish.
With a kilometre and a half to go, Christen went on a flyer, going under the flamme rouge alone and with a gap, but a huge effort from Matteo Sobrero (Lidl-Trek) reeled him in with less than 500m to go. From there, Sobrero led out for Ciccone, but Narváez was in the perfect position, following Ciccone and Aular and only pulling into the wind in the final 100m to power to the line for the win.
Thanks to bonus seconds and his results on the first three stages, Ciccone moved into pink, now leading by four seconds over Christen, whose Red Bull bonus seconds helped him climb up the GC too. Third overall is Florian Stork (Tudor), also at four seconds.
Racing continues on Wednesday with another breakaway-friendly stage with a category 3 and category 2 climb on the road to Potenza for stage 5 – though if stage 4's action is anything to go by, the GC teams could kick off some overall battles, too.
Results
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