Casper van Uden of Team Picnic-PostNL sprang a surprise on stage four of the Giro d’Italia yesterday to claim the first Grand Tour victory of his career.
The 23-year-old Dutchman dug deep to hold off compatriots Olav Kooij (Visma Lease a Bike) and Maikel Zijlaard (Tudor Pro Cycling) in a tense sprint finish, with the stage also marking the first-ever all-Dutch podium at the Giro.
“I didn’t do it alone – we did it with the whole team. All the boys here and all the staff here and in HQ as well. They did super work,” said Van Uden, whose last win came at the ZLM Tour in June last year.
“I didn’t have to do anything until 200m to go. I have a good sprint and went for it. We’ve done a really good job all season with the leadouts.
“I knew I had to just follow Bram (Welten) and the boys – they did a super good job and I’m really happy to give them something back. I’m not surprised and I know all the boys have a lot of belief in me.”
Van Uden’s victory also provides a massive boost to Picnic-PostNL’s hopes of remaining in the WorldTour, with the Dutch team facing the prospect of relegation.
The stage, a flat 189-km ride from Alberobello to Lecce and the first stage this year to be held in Italy, began with a gutsy attack by Francisco Munoz of Polti VisitMalta.
Munoz sped away from the peloton in the first few kilometres and persevered on his own for over 130km, but the Spaniard was reeled in with 56km to go and a bunch sprint became all but inevitable.
Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen, who reclaimed the pink jersey with a sprint win in stage three on Sunday, had a challenging finish as he was slowed down by a crash which also took out teammate Kragh Andersen – one of his leadout riders.
However, the Dane steadily worked his way to the front with the help of his team and was able to clinch a fourth-placed finish to comfortably retain the leader’s jersey.
“It was a hectic final, especially when the rest of the day was quite easy, but the final was really something special,” Pedersen said.
“Wide roads and narrow roads and so on. So a stressful day in the end, but all in all it was okay, we made it. And damage control on the points, so that’s good.”
Second-placed Primoz Roglic (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) did manage to shrink the gap to seven seconds after earning a two-second bonus, while Pedersen’s teammate Mathias Vacek is a further seven seconds behind in third.
Today’s stage five is another flat ride spanning 151km from Ceglie Messapica to Matera.
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