Il Giro d'Abruzzo 2025 Stage 4

April 18, 2025 The final day of the race is an absolute energy sucking day. There are nearly 3,000 altitude meters to climb between Corropoli and Isola del Gran Sasso for a finish at the base of the mighty Gran Sasso. The roads are relentlessly up or down all day as the riders head South and inland from Corropoli. They arrive to the finish line with around 60KM to go but head out for a loop up to Sparazzano before coming back around to the line to conclude the Giro d'Abruzzo. All of the Classifications are still mathematically possible to change hands and there is plenty of terrain to make for an aggressive day of racing. The rain cleared out from yesterday to give the riders perfect conditions for racing. The first Intermediate Sprint was contested by the bunch and it was Filippo Fiorelli of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè, Alessandro Covi of UAE-XRG, and Marco Brenner of Tudor Pro Cycling taking the bonuses and for Fiorelli, it gave him the outright lead of the Sprints jersey on the road. After the sprint, eight riders got away including George Bennett of Israel-Premier Tech, Sjoerd Bax of Q36.5, Federico Guzzo of S.C. Padovani Polo Cherry Bank, Alexandre Balmer of Solution Tech-Vini Fantini, Alessandro Tonelli of Polti-VisitMalta, Joel Suter of Tudor Pro Cycling, Ivo Oliveira of UAE-XRF, and Martin Marcellusi of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè. Guzzo took the Mountains points on the first ascent of the climb to Sparazzano which guaranteed him that jersey at the end of the day, given he finishes the stage. Bennett was the best placed overall at 2 minutes so Intermarché-Wanty and JCL Team UKYO were working behind to keep the break on a tight leash at just under 1 minute with 68KM to go. JCL Team UKYO upped the pace in the bunch and brought the gap down to 25 seconds with 53KM to go. They sent Simone Raccani up the road to try and join the break in an effort to perhaps move Raccani into the top 10 in GC. He could not bridge the gap and was forced to pull the plug and sit up on the valley road with 45KM to go. The gap crept back up to the break to 1 minute until 41KM to go when Julius Johansen of UAE-XRG attacked with his teammate Pablo Torres in the wheel. Fiorelli and race leader Georg Zimmermann of Intermarché-Wanty were attentive and quickly across but the group swelled to 13 riders and was too large to cooperate. Intermarché-Wanty went back to work on the front but they had just three riders left to support Zimmermann. The leaders started the second ascent of the Sparazzano climb with 38 seconds advantage to the peloton with 32KM to race. Kevin Colleoni and Shunsuke Imamura were dropped at the start of the climb leaving Zimmermann with just Louis Meintjes to set the pace. The break started to attack each other and were down to five by the top of the climb. Bax got away on the descent and Oliveira jumped away on the valley road and got quickly across. With Bennett now much less of a threat on GC and Marcellusi dropped from the break, VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè came up to help in the chase, as did Petrolike which was a great relief to Intermarché-Wanty. Riders were taking hard pulls in the bunch then swinging off and dropping away. The GC was safe at this point for Intermarché-Wanty but the stage win was disappearing up the road as the gap remained 40 seconds with 8KM to go. Resources were completely depleted in the peloton and attacks started going. The gap came all the way down to 20 seconds with 2KM to go but the pace went out again. The race was in the same camera shot on the straight, uphill drag under 500M to go. Bax and Oliveira were looking back but they had enough of a gap to play out the win between them. Oliveira led through the last corner at 250M and started his sprint. Bax was attentive but he did not have the same jump and could not get passed, giving Oliveira his second win of the week and the third of four stage wins for UAE-XRG. Giovanni Bortoluzzi of General Store-Essegibi-F.Lli Curia won the sprint from the field for third, 12 seconds behind Oliveira. The GC podium remained unchanged with Georg Zimmermann fending off attacks to take the win for Intermarché-Wanty, the first GC win of his career. David de la Cruz of Q36.5 finished 11 seconds down in second with Pablo Torres of UAE-XRG in third at 18 seconds.