Stage 4

The road

At the start

Sicily, and the first look at Etna

The race crosses to Sicily and finds a mountain waiting: 25.6 kilometres of Etna at 5.6 per cent, with a stretch of eleven early on. Mathieu van der Poel still wears pink, eleven seconds ahead of Simon Yates and sixteen ahead of Tom Dumoulin. Jan Tratnik has already gone home. After three days of Hungarian flatland the general classification riders finally get to look at each other.

How it was won

1. 133 km to go

   Huge crowds in Paternò

   Calmejane leads the fourteen-man attack through the intermediate sprint with the gruppo compatto 6:40 back. Etna is next, and nobody in the peloton is in a hurry.

2. 229 km to go

   The sprinters let go

   The roads tilt up long before the climb is official. Ewan is the first to sit up, Cavendish and the rest of the fast men following him out the back within a few kilometres.

3. 320 km to go

   Van der Poel gives up pink

   With most of Etna still to climb, the maglia rosa eases off and lets it go, saving his legs for a Giro that has three weeks left in it. Up ahead the fourteen have already splintered and Oldani is solo at fifty seconds.

4. 49 km to go

   López dances across on the 8%

   Ten kilometres from the summit Juan Pedro López skips up to Oldani and straight past him, chasing the stage. Kämna, Moniquet, Taaramäe and Vansevenant let him take thirty seconds before they organise. Behind, Ineos' tempo puts Dumoulin out of the back and out of the Giro's GC.

5. 53 km to go

   Kämna reels him in

   Three kilometres from the line the German catches the Spaniard, with Taaramäe hanging at thirty seconds and forcing the pair to keep working together.

6. 6At the line

   Kämna wins, López takes the maglia rosa

   They touch wheels rounding the final sweeping bend on the short descent to the line, and Kämna is simply the stronger. López bangs his handlebars in frustration — then discovers he is the first Spaniard in pink since Contador in 2015.

The result