Casper van Uden survives finishing circuit chaos to take sprint win on stage 4 of 2025 Giro d'Italia, boosting Picnic PostNL's fight against relegation

Team Picnic PostNL's Casper van Uden has sprinted to the win on stage 4 of the 2025 Giro d'Italia, surviving a chaotic and at times dangerous finishing circuit in Lecce, boosting his team hopes of surviving a World Tour relegation fight.

Given the fact that this was the widely expected first proper bunch sprint of this Giro d'Italia, not many fancied spending their day in a doomed breakaway. In the end, just the one rider - Francisco Muñoz of Team Polti VisitMalta did so, forming a one-man breakaway, although he didn't look too happy to be alone after he realised the situation.

With just the one rider up the road, things were relatively calm in the peloton behind. Even on these days though, the riders need to keep their concentration levels fully switched on at all times and that was proven by a crash out of nowhere that rocked the peloton at just over 120km to go. Although Maglia Rosa Mads Pedersen was caught up in the crash, it didn't look as if the Lidl-Trek leader actually hit the deck. One man who did come down hard however, was the Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team's Nickolas Zukowsky. The 26-year-old Canadian was seemingly the worst affected of the riders involved, and as he sat at the side of the road in the trademark position of a rider with a broken collarbone, the writing was sadly on the wall for his Grand Tour debut.

Bonus seconds were on offer at the second intermediate sprint of the day at Ostuni. After Munoz picked up the maximum 6 seconds on offer, there was a really tight finish for the 4 and 2 seconds behind with the Isaac del Toro taking the 4 and Primoz Roglic benefitting from 2.

Just ahead of the final intermediate sprint of the day at 56.5km to go, Munoz' solo rider was finally brought to an end as he was caught by the peloton. As the sprint opened up moments later, Olav Kooij bettered Mads Pedersen to cut the Dane's lead in the Maglia Ciclamino competition and send a warning sign before the upcoming sprint for the stage.

At just over 20km to go, Pedersen was caught up in a second crash of the day, with his teammate Soren Kragh Andersen left in pain at the roadside. With some quite frankly dangerous pinch points in the final circuit, getting back to the front of the peloton was no easy task for the Maglia Rosa either, and with nearly all his Lidl-Trek teammates sent back to help their GC hopeful Giulio Ciccone get back into the peloton, Pedersen had to get to the front largely on his own.

On the final lap of the finishing circuit, Pedersen did indeed finally get back to somewhere near the head of the race. With the GC riders getting through the 3km to go banner of relative safety, things were incredibly strung out heading towards the finale, and a number of big name sprinters found themselves out of position.

As the sprints then finally opened up it was Casper van Uden who powered to the win ahead of Olav Kooij and Maikel Zijlaard.