Last year’s Giro d’Italia points champion has taken his first win of this year’s race. Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) put on a display of pure power on the finishing straight of stage 4 to beat Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious).
Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) tried to get clear inside the last 4 km, but he was caught to set up a bunch kick.
Besides Milan’s win, the other big news of the day was the abandon of Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) after two crashes. Overall leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) finished safely in the peloton to maintain his grip on the pink jersey.
Intrigue before a sprint showdown
- Ganna made his intentions known early in the stage from Acqui Terme to Andora as he joined the early break for a little while before dropping back to the bunch after it became clear that the peloton did not take kindly to him being up the road.
- Despite the sprinter-friendly profile, there were still some dramatic moments before the finish, especially near the midway point of the stage, where the Colle del Melogno rose up as the lone categorized climb on the route. The trip up third-category ascent saw a few sprinters – notably, Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL) and Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) – drop out of the bunch, though both would return to the peloton.
- After the riders had crested the top of the climb, there were crashes on the wet descent off the other side. Girmay went down with a few other riders in one crash, and then he hit the deck again on his own just minutes later. The 24-year-old Eritrean would ultimately abandon the Giro, leaving the race in an ambulance.
- A split formed in the bunch near the intermediate sprint, but the second group closed it down and the reformed peloton brought the breakaway riders back inside the last 10 km. Ganna had recovered his strength by then, and after his initial attempt had come to naught, he tried again on the Capo Mele with around 4 km to go. He went over the climb with a small gap, arriving at the flamme rouge with a five-second advantage, but the lead-out trains chasing the Italian would not be denied, catching him with some 500 meters to go.
- Simone Consonni led Lidl-Trek teammate Milan into the last 300 meters before pulling off, and then Christophe Laporte pulled his Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Olav Kooij to the front. Milan, however, hardly waited to launch his own sprint.
- Kooij tried to match Milan but faded. Groves, Bauhaus, and Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) spent a few more moments in the slipstream before launching – but none of them could match Milan’s speed.
Brief results
Brief analysis
- On Monday, the late move by Pogačar and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) threw a wrench (a spanner?) into the works of the lead-out riders, making for a messy stage 3 finish. The lead-out riders, Consonni in particular, refused to let that happen on stage 4. He kept his cool on the run-in to the finishing straight and reeled Ganna in, and then he continued to push the pace with Milan in the wheel for another two hundred meters.
- Consonni peeled off with some distance still to cover and then Laporte took the front, but Milan decided to launch over 200 meters from the line. Kooij tried to stay with him but lost ground quickly. The rest of the contenders had a chance to spend at least a few moments in the slipstream, but once they launched, none of them could pull even with Milan.
- After taking runner-up honors on stage 3 and nabbing intermediate sprint points, Milan moved into a clear lead in the points classification with his stage 4 victory. Wednesday’s sprinter-friendly profile should present another opportunity for him to accrue points as he looks to defend the maglia ciclamino.
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