After a hard fought beginning of stage 4, Aurélien Paret-Peintre and Andreas Leknessund emerged from a 7-man breakaway to contest the victory that went to the Frenchman while the Norwegian took the Maglia Rosa 42 years after his compatriot Knut Knudsen had it for the second time. Latvia’s Toms Skujins rounded out the stage podium. Paret-Peintre, a climber from the French Alps, moved up to third overall with a deficit of thirty seconds, just two down on Evenepoel who sits in second place as he wished.
STAGE RESULTS
1 – Aurélien Paret-Peintre (AG2R Citroën Team) – 175 km in 4h’16’04″, av. speed 41.005 km/h
2 – Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM) at 2″
3 – Toms Skujiņš (Trek – Segafredo) at 57″
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION
1 – Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM)
2 – Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) at 28″
3 – Aurélien Paret-Peintre (AG2R Citroën Team) at 30″
4 – João Gonçalves Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) at 1’00”
5 – Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) at 1’12”
Speaking in the press conference, the stage winner Aurélien Paret-Peintre said: “My main goal at the beginning of the Giro was and still is to do well on GC. I put myself in the breakaway. It was pretty slippery but I managed to do well. I always had in mind the goal of getting closer to the Maglia Rosa. I knew Andreas Leknessund was the highest ranked of us. We spoke a little bit but we couldn’t come to an agreement as he also wanted to win the stage. I knew I was faster than him, so in the last three kilometres I was quite confident I’d beat him. It’s nice for a team like ours to win a stage. If on Friday I see an opportunity to go for the Maglia Rosa at the Gran Sasso, I won’t hesitate.”
The Maglia Rosa Andreas Leknessund said:“Being a cyclist, the Maglia Rosa is something you dream of. It will remain in my memory for the rest of my life. There was a big fight for making the breakaway with the Maglia Rosa probably up for grabs. I felt good in the first attacks. I was almost in every move. It was hard but I did a good race. The breakaway eventually went in a downhill. It was nice to get a gap and at the end, I’m here with the Maglia Rosa. I know myself well enough, so I knew that I shouldn’t go too hard in the first part of the last climb. I tried to stay calm. Maybe I could have done something different but at the end I got the maximum out of today.”
