Ben Healy remains positive despite missing out on today's breakaway: "Hopefully it will turn out well"

Ben Healy was almost never from the front during the long battle for the early breakaway in the fourth stage of the Giro d'Italia. Attack followed attack, but the Irishman missed the decisive move. In the sequel, Healy decided to lose extra time. He came in more than nine minutes from the group with GC favourites.

"Yes, I may have thrown away my strength a bit too much," Healy admits to Eurosport afterwards. "I didn't get away. Every time I had a hole, someone closed it again," Healy is disappointed. The Irishman had the feeling it was a day for the breakaway and attacked multiple times early in the day.

However he did not make it into the decisive move of the day. "At least the legs are good," the rider finishes the stage on a positive note. "And now that I've lost some time, maybe it will be a bit easier to get away."

Healy crossed the finish line in 78th place, almost 12 minutes behind winner Aurélien Paret-Peintre. "I still feel good. I started the climb with the main group and maybe I could have stayed with it, but I'm not here for the GC. So I squeezed the brakes to lose as much time as possible," which Healy succeeded in doing. "There are many opportunities in this Giro and hopefully it will work out well in the coming weeks."