Giro d’Italia 2022, stage four – live updates as race heads to Mount Etna

Today looks like an intriguing day of racing. Does Simon Yates, who starts the stage in second place 11 seconds off the lead of Mathieu van der Poel, want to take the pink jersey, or will the Briton be hoping a breakaway prevails and wrestles control of the maglia rosa?

I suspect he and his BikeExchange-Jayco team would want the latter, but depending on how the stage is raced, Yates may be forced into taking the maglia rosa off the broad shoulders of Van der Poel. If that’s the case, then his team will probably hope to lose it over the next few days. 

Having worn the leader’s jersey for 13 days back in 2018 before losing it in dramatic fashion to Chris Froome on stage 19, Yates knows better than most that taking the lead in a grand tour too early adds a degree of stress that us mere mortals may find difficult to understand. Additional media duties and being the centre of attention where every move, comment or quip is analysed to within an inch of its life can be draining.

Based on the assumption that Van der Poel loses the maglia rosa today – I think that’s a safe assumption – then Yates would probably love it for a breakaway to clip off up the road and take the stage win, so don’t be surprised if you see somebody like Lorenzo Fortunato (Eolo-Kometa) or Alessandro de Marchi (Israel-Premier Tech) working hard in the early part of the stage in an effort to make a breakaway. However, should one of Yates’ many general classification rivals decide to attack on the final climb, either going for the stage or in an attempt to gain time on the Briton, then he will have to respond. He may not want to take the pink jersey, but he certainly will not want to lose any vital seconds so early in the race.

This will, hopefully, be a fascinating stage which in recent years has created plenty of drama, some of which British cycling fans may want to forget. It was on this stage where Geraint Thomas in 2020 came a cropper after a rogue bidon took the Welshman down in the neutral zone to end his hopes, while later that day Yates was dropped around eight kilometres from the summit, plummeting down to 25th overall. It is not all doom and gloom, however. Yates’ then team-mate Esteban Chaves won here in 2018 while the Briton took the first of his 13 pink jerseys here on a memorable day for his Australian squad.

And so, what does the stage look like?