COSENZA, Italy (AP) — Italian rider Giulio Ciccone took the overall lead of the Giro d’Italia as this year’s race moved into his home country for the first time, and Jhonatan Narváez won the fourth stage on Tuesday.
Guillermo Thomas Silva, the first Uruguayan to win a Giro stage and to don the pink jersey, had been in the lead as the race resumed in Italy following a rest day after the opening three stages in Bulgaria.
But Thomas Silva cracked halfway up the lengthy, second-category climb in the latter half of the stage and eventually finished more than 10 minutes off the pace.
Ciccone was fighting for the stage win but the Lidl-Trek cyclist was outsprinted by Narváez, with Orluis Aular second at the end of the 138-kilometer (86-mile) route from Catanzaro, in the foot of Italy, to Cosenza.
The four bonus seconds Ciccone picked up for finishing third was enough to lift him into the overall lead of the Giro, four seconds ahead of Jan Christen, Florian Stork and Egan Bernal.
“The feeling is, I would say, amazing,” said the 31-year-old Ciccone, who crashed out of last year’s Giro. “I’ve always dreamed of this jersey since I was a kid. I started this sport dreaming to wear this jersey, and today I think I really realized one of my best dreams.
“Especially like this, you know, I was not expecting this jersey today. After many hard moments, especially last year with the crash. I think this year wearing now this jersey is really something really crazy.”
The Giro is Narváez’s first race since the Ecuadorian rider fractured several vertebrae in a crash at the Tour Down Under in Australia in January.
“I think it’s really big for me, this victory here, coming from just three months’ training in Ecuador,” said Narváez, who rides for UAE Team Emirates-XRG. “I want to send 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, they crashed on stage two, they’ve been working for a while to come here in a good condition and finally we take the victory today … so I think we are a lot happier now.”
Wednesday’s fifth stage could shake up the general classification standings. It features nearly 4,000 meters of climbing and hardly any flat sections on the 203-kilometer (126-mile) route from Praia a Mare to Potenza.
The 109th men’s Giro ends on May 31 in Rome.
The women’s Giro runs from May 30-June 7 with Italian rider Elisa Longo Borghini as the defending champion.
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AP cycling: https://apnews.com/hub/cycling