“I can almost touch pink” - Jan Christen starts to dream as UAE fightback kicks into gear on stage 4 of Giro d’Italia 2026

UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Giro d’Italia looked close to collapse after the mass crash on stage 2. Two days later, Jhonatan Narvaez had delivered a stage win, Jan Christen had come within touching distance of the Maglia Rosa, and the reduced five-man team had turned survival mode into a statement of intent.

Christen was central to that response on stage 4. The Swiss rider won the Red Bull kilometre bonus sprint, attacked inside the final two kilometres, forced the decisive chase behind, and helped set up Narvaez for victory in Cosenza.

After losing Adam Yates, Jay Vine and Marc Soler from their original GC structure, UAE suddenly have a very different Giro to ride, but not one without ambition.

“Yeah, I mean, now it was a great day for the team,” Christen told Cycling Pro Net after the finish. “We take the stage with Johnny and that was the goal and we did it. So, super happy for the team.”

The opening weekend had left UAE heavily damaged. Yates, Vine and Soler were all forced out following the brutal stage 2 crash, leaving the team with only five riders and no obvious version of the race plan they had brought to the Giro.

Stage 4 changed the mood. Movistar had done much of the damage on the Cozzo Tunno climb, dropping Guillermo Thomas Silva from the Maglia Rosa group and removing most of the pure sprinters from contention. In the final phase, however, UAE had two cards to play. Christen went on the attack, Narvaez waited behind, and the finish unfolded exactly in their favour.

Asked whether UAE had shown that stage 2 had not broken their Giro, Christen said: “Yeah, for sure. I mean, we stick together as a team and we showed how strong we are today and we try to keep going like that.”

That line matters because this was not simply a consolation stage win. Christen’s move also put him directly into the pink jersey conversation. After taking six bonus seconds at the Red Bull kilometre, he briefly looked like a serious threat to take the Maglia Rosa himself before Giulio Ciccone eventually moved into the race lead by finishing second on the stage.

Christen’s late move was not random. It was a deliberate two-rider plan designed to give UAE two different ways to win the stage. If Christen stayed away, he had a shot at the stage and possibly pink. If he was caught, Narvaez was waiting for the sprint.

“Yeah, I mean, it was the plan,” Christen explained. “We spoke on the radio. I told him I also had good feeling and if I try in the last 2K maybe I can make it to the finish. If not, he stays ready in the wheels for the final sprint and then he should win. So in the end it worked out for him and I’m happy for him.”

That is exactly how the final kilometres played out. Christen forced Movistar and others to chase, Orluis Aular was drawn into the open early, and Narvaez then came through on the opposite side of the road to take UAE’s first win of this Giro.

For Christen, there was still the slight frustration of missing pink. Yet even that was part of a far bigger positive. In his first Giro d’Italia, he is already wearing the white jersey, fighting near the top of the overall standings, and suddenly carrying a more prominent role within a team that has been reshaped by circumstance.

Christen was cautious when asked about his own plan for the race, but the ambition was impossible to miss. UAE may not have arrived in Italy expecting him to be their main GC hope, but the road has changed the hierarchy.

“We will see,” he said. “I mean, it’s my first Giro. Already to stay in white is a super nice experience. I think I can almost touch pink, but we will see the next days and for sure for me the goal is to take a stage in the upcoming days.”

That is the balance UAE now have to manage. Christen is still learning the demands of a three-week race, and far harder days are coming, but he has already shown enough to make himself part of the early Giro story. After the loss of Yates, Vine and Soler, UAE needed someone to turn disruption into opportunity. On stage 4, Christen and Narvaez did exactly that.