The fourth Giro stage was a real spectacle, one of the leading roles was for Maxime Monfort. The peloton started in Chiavari for a relative short stage of 150 kilometres to La Spezia. There were three climbs of third category on the route and in between it was never flat. Immediately after the start there were a lot of attacks. Just like yesterday a large group, of 28 riders, got in front. This time Maxime Monfort was part of it.

On the second official climb Monfort rode in front with six others. After Passo del Termine riders returned from behind. It had seemed that the peloton wouldn’t get a change to fight for the stage win, but on the Passo del Termine Astana raised the tempo. Only nineteen riders reached the top together, Jurgen Van den Broeck was one of them. In the local lap of seventeen kilometres the last climb was located.

Davide Formolo attacked. He was the only escapee that could stay ahead of the group of favourites. Monfort arrived 42 seconds later in a second group, together with Van den Broeck. In GC Van Den Broeeck is now 20th at 1’21” of leader Simon Clarke, Monfort is 21st in the same time.

“It wasn’t planned that I’d join a breakaway today. I noticed there was no organization in the peloton and that many riders could jump away. Then I thought, why shouldn't I attack as well if they let a large group go. You don’t use more power than in the peloton and I could gain time for GC. But also in the front group there was no organization, there were attacks all the time; that’s the disadvantage of a large breakaway. There are always riders who want to hide and don’t do their part of the work and that causes problems. At a certain point I got in a second group at three minutes of the leaders, but we could rejoin them. That cost energy," Monfort said.

“Later, four riders got away and together with the future stage winner I closed the gap, we worked well together. Then I still believed the victory was possible. I thought this could be the good group, but others could return. By the end of the stage I had cramps, so on the last climb I couldn’t go full.

“It’s unbelievable that this stage caused so much damage. We are only the fourth day of the Giro, with relative short stages, and there are already big time gaps. The GC is shaped a first time and we haven’t had a real climb yet. There are still two and a half weeks to go. I expect many more spectacular things. Tomorrow it’s the first summit finish, in theory not too hard, but you never know in this Giro (laughs).”