May 12, 2026
After a long day of traveling through the Balkans and across the Adriatic Sea, the race arrives in Italy's deep South for the fourth day of the Giro d'Italia. Calabria's capital, Catanzaro, will host the start of the 138 km stage which travels mostly in a Northerly direction up the Tyrrhenian coast to the finish in Cosenza. The first 80 km are almost entirely flat with just an intermediate sprint in San Lucido along the way. Once in San Lucido, the race will turn inland into the Southern Apennines and immediately start climbing the main feature of the day. The Cozzo Tunno is 14.4 km in length at an average gradient of 5.9%. The top comes 42 km from the finish, 25 km of which are descending down into the Valle del Crati. The route will turn South towards Cosenza with a Redbull Sprint just 11 km from the line. The road will then start to drag up the valley with the last 400 meters uphill at just under 4%. There are no less than six corners in the last 1,500 meters so if the big sprinters are not shed on Cozzo Tunno, the sprint could be quite hectic.
Race Summary
Over the rest day, there was another casualty from the crash on Stage 2 as Wilco Kelderman of Visma-Lease a Bike was a non-starter. The wind was ripping at the start in Catanzaro with sustained speeds of 30 km/hr and gusts over 50 km/hr. There was no discussion about neutralizing the race and the bunch proceeded over the mightily impressive Ponte Bisantis towards KM 0. After 11 km of neutral, the flag dropped and we finally got to see a battle for the break. Darren Rafferty of EF-Education EasyPost was the first to get a gap and four others came across including Warren Barguil of Picnic-PostNL Raisin, Martin Marcellusi of Bardiani CSF 7 Saber, Niklas Larsen of Unibet Rose Rockets, and Mattia Bais of Polti-VisitMalta. Johan Jacobs of Groupama-FDJ United bridged over to make six but the peloton wasn't done. UAE-XRG wanted in the move but XDS-Astana got help from Decathlon CMA CGM and the teams with representation up the road to shut down any further moves. The wind was blowing straight into the riders' face which made it very difficult to close the gap in a solo bridge attempt. After about 5 km, teams completely blocked the road and the gap went from 20 seconds to 40 seconds and the break was gone.
XDS-Astana started to control when the break was at just 45 seconds ahead, mainly because Rafferty was best placed at just 10 seconds down on GC. Decathlon CMA CGM committed a rider to the front and the gap was pegged at around 2 minutes 20 seconds. There were nerves building as the peloton approached the exposed coast road with the threat of wind across their left side. The break reached the sea side with 100 km to go and the wind didn't seem as strong as it had been at the start and it turned out to be a non-factor. The team of Alpecin-Premier Tech was dealt a blow with 98 km remaining when Kaden Groves was forced to abandon the race. He would have been a stage favorite but the crash from Stage 1 took its toll and he was not able to continue.
The coast road was stunning as the mountains rose from the sea and into the clouds with vineyards scaling the slopes. Medieval hilltop villages with ruined castles dotted the horizon as the riders continued North towards the intermediate sprint in San Lucido. With 64 km to go, the peloton started to bunch up to get set for the turn onto the Cozzo Tunno. Ahead, Bais took the sprint uncontested and with six riders in the break, no points were left for anyone in the peloton.
The break immediately turned off the coast road and onto the climb with just 1 minute 35 seconds. After about 1 km of the climb, Movistar started to set a pace for their man, Orluis Aular. 3 km later, many of the bigger riders had been dropped and those still in the group were drifting backwards. Jonathan Milan, Paul Magnier, Tobias Lund Andresen, and the Maglia Rose, Guillermo Thomas Silva, were all dropped and Movistar continued their infernal pace. Halfway up, the last of the break, Bais and Rafferty, were caught but Lorenzo Milesi of Movistar probably didn't notice because his head was down and driving as much pace as he could muster.
Corbin Strong of NSN Cycling was dropped with 4 km to go leaving almost no real fast guy in the bunch except for Aular. Milesi swung off after a monster 10 km pull and handed off to his teammates to finish the job. The bunch continued at a rapid pace and riders were getting dropped in three's and four's. The big surprise came 1,500 meters from the top when third overall, Egan Bernal of Netcompany-Ineos, started to lose contact. Bernal came across the top 30 seconds after the main group of only about 35 riders with Ben Turner for help in the chase. With 31 km to go, they got an ally in the form of Derek Gee of Lidl-Trek who punctured out of the lead group and was chasing with Bernal. As the descent flattened out, Lidl-Trek dropped a rider back to help pace Gee back but it was a hard chase because Movistar were still drilling it on the front.
Bernal, Gee, and company made it back on with 17 km to go and could take a sigh of relief. All of the GC contenders moved up at 1 km from the Redbull Sprint with eyes on snagging bonus seconds. 500 meters from the line, Victor Campenaerts of Visma-Lease a Bike came with a head of steam from behind with Jonas Vingegaard in tow. Campenaerts ran out of legs before Vingegaard could realistically commit to the sprint, leaving the Dane a bit stuck on the front. Jan Christen of UAE-XRG started his sprint at the right time and took 6 bonus seconds. He closed the door on Giulio Pellizzari of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe who was not particularly happy with the maneuver but there was not much there to criticize.
Movistar regained control after the sprint and we were able to get a good look at possible contenders. In the group was Aular for Movistar, Christen and Jhonatan Narváez for UAE-XRG, Michael Valgren for EF-Education EasyPost, Diego Ulissi of XDS-Astana, Felix Engelhardt of Jayco AlUla, Florian Stock of Tudor Pro Cycling, and Ben Turner but he had done a lot for Bernal and would likely be missing some watts in a sprint.
The road started to narrow and twist just under 3 km to go and the fight for position began. It looked like it would be a normal lead out into the sprint but with 1,600 meters to go, Jan Christen took a flyer into the first of six corners. Movistar were quick to react but it was Matteo Sobrero who closed it for Lidl-Trek, catching Christen with 400 meters to go. Behind Sobrero was Aular, then Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek, Narváez, Alessandro Pinarello of NSN Cycling, and Turner. Aular found himself too far forward when Christen was caught and had no choice but to open up with 300 meters to go. Aular led until 100 meters to go when Narváez got a run off of Ciccone and came around. Aular doubled down on his effort but the Ecuadorian's sprint was too strong. Narváez took the stage well ahead of Aular who was able to hold off Ciccone in third. The win for Narváez marks the end of an arduous comeback after a heavy crash in the Tour Down Under in which he sustained multiple vertebrae compression fractures.
Ciccone picked up 2 seconds in the Redbull Sprint and his third place came with 4 bonus seconds. Since Silva was dropped, the Maglia Rose moves over to the Italian's shoulders and Ciccone will lead the Giro d'Italia for the first time in his career. He was visibly moved by the realization of the moment and was thankful to his teammates for placing him in such a position. Christen moved up to second overall at 4 seconds after taking the Redbull Sprint with Florian Stock also on 4 seconds in third.