2021 Baby Giro Diaries | Stage 4

Welcome to stage 4 of our Baby Giro diary show, which comes after a great day for the Brits. As usual, we’ll bring you a short round-up of the day’s action, together with diary entries from Trinity Racing’s Tom Gloag, SEG Racing Academy’s Harrison Wood and Holdsworth-Zappi manager Callum Ferguson.

Stage 4 was a pan flat 25-kilometre individual time trial from Sorbolo Mezzani to Guastalla. Time trials of this length are a rarity at the under-23 level, so it wasn’t completely clear which riders the course would suit. Harrison’s tip for the stage win, his teammate Daan Hoole, was one of the early leaders, eventually finishing in 7th. Tom’s teammate Ben Healy was also in the hot seat for a while before being knocked off the top spot by just one second to Italian Filippo Baroncini from the powerful Colpack Ballan team. Healy nonetheless finished second on the stage, and was joined on the podium by Trinity Racing’s other Ben – Turner – who continued his fine run of form with third.

Most of the main overall favourites managed strong results, keeping their GC ambitions intact, including Tom Gloag. He finished 22nd, just over a minute down, which must be regarded as a good result for someone who admitted on yesterday’s show that he’s had little time trialling practice of late. Harrison put in a solid if unspectacular ride to finish 64th, while Holdsworth-Zappi’s best finisher was once again Daan Hoeks, who was 28th. 

All this means that Ben Turner is now the new Maglia Rosa, leading the stage winner Filippo Baroncini by just one second overall. Tom moves up to 15th overall, just over one minute back, while Ben Healy has clawed some time back and is now just under two minutes down in 28th.

Next up, Stage 5 is from Fanano to Sestola. It’s 142 kilometres long and ends with two category one climbs. It’s the same finish used in the elite Giro last month on stage 4 won from the break by Joe Dombrowski. It should result in another GC shake-up and one of the big questions for those with British interests will be whether Ben Turner can hang on to pink.

In our diaries, we hear first from an understandably jubilant Tom, who reports that team morale is now sky-high. Tom’s buoyant mood contrasts with disappointment and exhaustion for Harrison and Callum. Both report that they didn’t get the respective performances they were hoping for, while Callum also had some tricky logistical issues to negotiate too.