Dutchman Casper van Uden wins his first major cyclist race at Giro d'Italia stage 4

Casper van Uden has won his first major race, the fourth stage at the Giro d'Italia, beating favourites like the Dane Mads Pedersen, leader of the pack, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic and his compatriots Olal Kooij and Maikel Zijlaard. The 23-year-old Dutchman from Team Picnic PostNL, a team fighting to avoid relegation from top level in cycling, triumphs at the first stage in his debut at a Grand Tour, finishing the 189 km race in 4:05:00.

The sprint stage, a flat race between Alberobello and Lecce, the first race on Italian soil after the start in Albania last weekend, seemed to be dominated by 23-year-old Spaniard Francisco Muñoz, but 57 km before the finish line, but was caught on by the best sprinters in the stage.

A crash forced Pederson to loose ground and ended up fourth in the stage, but his wins in the first and third stage allow him to retain the pink jersey leading the general classification, although only by seven seconds from Roglic. After the fourth stage, Isaac del Toro (5th) surpassed Juan Ayuso in the classification (6th).