Giro d'Italia 2024 Stage 4

May 7, 2024 The flag dropped at KM0 on another day set for the sprinters. Francisco Muñoz of Polti-Kometa went up the road first, then Stephan De Bod of EF-Education EasyPost and Lilian Calmejane of Intermarché-Wanty followed. Filippo Ganna of Ineos was next to go to make four at the front. Ganna's presence caused some concern in the peloton for the sprinter's teams and they began to work. It wasn't long before Ganna thought better about spending his energy on such a day so he took his final pull and went back to the peloton. The break's lead started to edge further out and stabilized at 4 minutes. The break went over the fog and cloud covered Colla Del Melongo, keeping their lead of 4 minutes. Calmejane dropped out of the break at 73KM to go after taking the mountains points, leaving De Bod and Muñoz to go off alone. Off the descent and through the wet, twisty roads of Savona, the peloton split due to a crash with 50 or 60 making the front. The chase groups came together with 47KM to race as the peloton still had 2 minutes to close down to the break. The peloton came storming through Albenga with 15KM remaining on the same coastal roads as Milan-Sanremo. The two leaders did a great job in fending off the peloton but they were caught at the base of the Capo Mele with 5KM to go. Ganna attacked with 4KM to go, the perfect distance for a Pursuit specialist. Riders in the peloton were thinned completely down as the speed over the Capo Mele was infernal but most of the sprinter managed to stay in the bunch. Lidl-Trek got organized over the top, catching Ganna at 500M. Jonathan Milan of Lidl-Trek started his sprint at 300M from the line. Tim Merlier of Soudal Quickstep was coming fast but ran out of legs at 100M. Kaden Groves of Alpecin-Deceuninck also came with speed but could not get over the top of Milan. Milan took an impressive win ahead of Groves in second and Phil Bauhaus of Bahrain-Victorious. Merlier faded to fifth and had to hand the Maglia Ciclamino over to Milan.