Diego Ulissi won the sprint for fourth in today's stage of the Giro d'Italia, leading to speculation that he could have taken his third stage win if his team had chased down the early break. Having had bad legs all day, however, he refused that it was a missed opportunity.

Diego Ulissi is the man of the moment in the Giro d'Italia and seems to be virtually unbeatable in the uphill sprints. With today's stage finishing on a rather easy climb, another uphill sprint was a likely outcome of the stage and Ulissi again had a good chance to win a stage.

However, his team chose to send Matteo Bono into the early break from which eventual winner Pieter Weening emerged. As Ulissi won the sprint for fourth from the group of favourites, many suggested that he could have made it two in a row if his team had done it differently.

However, he refuses that suggestion.

"Today I struggled because of my efforts over the last few days and because I did not sleep very well," he said. "I was not at my best. I think that a fourth place is a good result that ends this first part of the race in a satisfactory way. I'm not frustrated by the fact that the group did not catch the break. Today Pozzovivo was the strongest and he showed so on the climb."

"It has not been easy, because the escape didn't take off until after an hour of racing where we raced at more than 47kph," Bono said. "We were fourteen, the agreement was good. Less than 20km from the finish, Weening made his attack, followed later by Malacarne. I was not too good, maybe I paid for the efforts made ​​in the first kilometers of the race where I had to attack several times to join the break."