Geraint Thomas retreats from Giro d’Italia as Arnaud Damer wins stage four

On the maritime front in Villafranca Tirena, Arnaud DeMar moved out of Giro d’Italia with Girant Thomas Fracture Pelvis before Peter Sagan and David Ballerini advanced.

The day Joao Almeida took his lead in the pink jersey, the big news came before he left Catania in the 140km stage, when Thomas wasn’t starting a day after hitting the race’s favorite deck hard. Bottled water at the beginning of the gold phase in the event of an outbreak.

The 34-year-old finished the stage more than 12 minutes down before being sent for an X-ray. Although it did not initially show broken bones, a fresh scan on Tuesday revealed a small undivided fracture in the lower part of the pelvis.

“It’s very frustrating,” Thomas said. “I will work hard in this race. I did everything I could and felt, like, better than if I won the tour, if not in good shape. I felt really good. So it ends like this to finish.

“I was really there to start today. I woke up and wanted to start with the boys and at least help them to go for the stages in the next few days, but from deeper depth I know something is not good, so we went to get this extra scan.

“It makes the decision easier when there’s a fracture in some way, because obviously I don’t want to do any more damage.”

The Tho Thomas crash was part of being a dramatic part of the general classification on the Sicilian volcano, but a day later, the sprinters turned their attention to the long descent approach to the finish line.

Sagan’s Bora-Hansgro team worked hard to distance Portella Mandrazi, some of her sprint rivals, and although Elijah Viviana returned, Fernando Gaviria had to give up the chase.

But for all the hard work of Bora on the choir, they lost position at the final corner as they reached the sea front. Demer’s groupma-FDJ teammate Miles Scotson’s late charge failed, Sagan started an early sprint, but couldn’t catch Demer when the photo was completed.

That means Giro is second for debutant Sagan, when he finished runner-up Diego Ulyssini on Sunday, a very familiar feeling for the player, who has now finished 30th in the Grand Tours to go with his 16-stage win.

Almeida used a 25km intermediate sprint from home to pad his slim lead in a pink jersey, taking two bonus points on stage winner Jonathan Cassido on Monday, who started the day at the same time.

Otherwise a little change at the top. Wilco Calderman is fourth, down 44 seconds, while two-time Giro winner Vincenzo Nibali is sixth in seconds, Jacob Fugelsang and Steven CruiseSwijk are ninth and tenth, respectively.

James Knox, a teammate of Almeida’s Dysunic-Quickstep team, is down 16 minutes, one minute and 42 seconds, after Simon Yates struggled to get off Mount Etna and Thomas.

Thomas, meanwhile, is heading home, his 2020 season at a certain premature end. He targeted the Tour de France, but his form was short at the Criarium du Duffin in August, which turned him into a giro again.

His overall second place in the Tireno-ri Dryatico, and fourth place in the time trial at the UCI Road World Championships, underscored his status as a favorite, and he finished best among the contenders overall from Saturday’s early time trial.

But bad luck struck once again, three years after his last bid to win the pink jersey, effectively ended in a ninth motorcycle crash involving a police motorcycle in the ninth round of 2017.

When another bizarre incident happened at the end of Tuesday’s stage, two riders of the Winnie Zabu-KTM team – Luca Lackn Veckerman and Etienne Van Ampel – apparently collided while blowing up obstacles along the way.

Andrea Citresca, the team’s general manager, told Italian TV station RI2: “The helicopter was flying very low, the wind speed had blown away the obstacles.

“Wakerman was sent to the hospital, he was barely conscious – it’s not clear if he broke his abdomen. The barriers were not properly constructed. “