Gaps from the very first day at the Giro d’Italia 2024. Indeed, the eventful opening stage of the Corsa Rosa immediately delivers excitement and some surprises. Beaten to the finish, Tadej Pogacar nonetheless gains ground on all his direct rivals, who for the most part arrive together within ten seconds of the Slovenian, who also takes four seconds off his rivals. However, the small group of early chasers does not include Juan Pedro Lopez (Lidl-Trek), who arrives just ten seconds later, Lorenzo Fortunato (Astana Qazastan), who loses another four seconds, but also missing are Domenico Pozzovivo (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè), Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and, most importantly, Romain Bardet (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers). If the Frenchman arrives together with the two experienced climbers, with a delay of 57 seconds, much heavier is the detachment of the sixth place finisher of the last edition, who instead concedes 2’17”, thus already being able to say goodbye, from the first day, to his high ranking ambitions.

On the second day, with the finish in Oropa, Tadej Pogacar takes the Maglia Rosa with a splendid solo that sees him set aside an early treasure over all rivals, starting with Geraint Thomas and Daniel Martinez, who in reverse positions finish the stage, and both climb onto the provisional podium behind the Slovenian. Also among those who respond immediately well are Cian Uijtdebroeks, Einer Rubio and Lorenzo Fortunato, as well as good reaction from Juan Pedro Lopez. He gives up a little something in the final Ben O’Connor, who spent too much probably to try to resist the burning sprint of Pogacar, while besides the confirmations of Domenico Pozzovivo (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè), Nairo Quintana (Movistar), Romain Bardet (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers), losing even more today is Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious), who, due to a puncture at the start of the climb, now has almost three minutes on the leaderboard from the Slovenian, with teammate Damiano Caruso doing a little better, but still 1’29” behind at the finish.

After two explosive stages, the third causes no significant changes, with the Maglia Rosa still firmly on the shoulders of Pogacar, who also gains the two seconds up for grabs at the day’s flying finish. Instead, it is Uijtdebroeks who takes the abbono in the fourth stage, gaining 1″ in the intermediate sprint and moving up to fourth place in the overall, thus gaining one position in a classification with no other major changes.

Standings Top riders after Stage 4: