Cycling: After another mountainous 150 km through Liguria, the 22-year-old Italian Davide Formolo (Cannondale-Garmin) wins in an impressive manner in his first Grand Tour participation. Shortly before the final climb, he was able to break away from the leading group and save his lead on the following descent to the finish. Second is Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEdge), who at first cannot be happy about the maglia rosa that he will wear starting tomorrow.
22 seconds after Davide Formolo, Simon Clarke crosses the finish line at the head of the chasing group, raises his hands and celebrates exuberantly. Right up until the moment when fourth-placed Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to Formolo, who was jubilant further up the field. Clarke clasps his hands over his head, which he had just held up in the air to cheer. Shortly afterwards he can laugh again - the Australian had probably lost track for a moment. No wonder, because the stage was as varied as on the previous days and marked by a hard-fought and nervous leader.
Immediately after the starting signal, a leading group of almost 30 riders formed, from which Amael Moinard (BMC) and Sonny Colbrelli (Bardiani) managed to pull away after a while. The latter also secures the second intermediate sprint of the day - after that the large leading group delivers a really gripping and entertaining fight. Again and again there are attacks that succeed for a short time, but are quickly stopped again. In hot summer temperatures, the peloton behind the leading group also set a remarkable pace. The pacemaker is the team from Astana around their captain Fabio Aru, but Tinkoff-Saxo (Contador) and Sky (Porte) are also working hard for their classification drivers. Only Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-QuickStep) has big problems keeping up the pace and is struggling at the end of the field.
At the foot of the final climb up to Biassa, it is then, surprising to many, Cannondale-Garmin's young Davide Formolo who takes heart and launches an irresistible attack. After a short time he has already closed a big gap to his pursuers and can keep up the enormous speed up to the top of the partly extremely steep ascent. He has a lead of about half a minute before the descent down to the finish in La Spezia - with a carefree and enormously concentrated descent and after mobilizing the last of his strength, he finally saves the lead to the finish. What an achievement, what an achievement for such a young rider.
In the chasing group, Simon Clarke was able to assert himself in the sprint against Yonattah Monsalve (Southeast) and Giovanni Visconti (Movistar). The classification favorites Aru, Contador and Porte also finish at the same time as Clarke. Only Rigoberto Uran lost 42 seconds to his fellow competitors after a really hard fight for him. With his second place, Clarke takes over the maglia rosa from his teammate Michael Matthews. So after the fourth stage we have the third pink jersey wearer, they were all Australians and all Orica-GreenEdge riders. Will it continue like this tomorrow? We will see.
Final result, Stage 4 Giro d'Italia 2015
[easy table th=“0″]1., Davide Formolo, ITA, Cannondale-Garmin, 3:47:59
2.,Simon Clarke,AUS,Orica-GreenEdge,0:00:22
3rd,Yonattah Monsalve,VEN,Southeast,
4th, Giovanni Visconti, ITA, Movistar,
5.,Esteban Chaves,COL,Orica-GreenEdge,
6.,Fabio Aru,ITA,Astana,
7.,Amael Moinard,FRA,BMC,
8.,Dario Cataldo,ITA,Astana,
9.,Alberto Contador,SPA,Tinkoff Saxo,
10th, Richie Porte, AUS, Team Sky,
[/easy table]