PREVIEW | Giro di Sicilia 2023 stage 4 - Queen stage sees battle with Caruso, Majka and Lutsenko

Preview. Stage 4 of the Giro di Sicilia will be the queen stage, as the riders climb Mount Etna. It's a difficult stage that should decide the overall classification, where Finn Fisher-Black will attempt to defend his lead.

The queen stage, and a proper one. Unlike the modern trend of making mountain stages shorter, in Sicilia things are done different. 216 kilometers in the final day of racing with over 4000 meters of climbing. A very long ascent ending in Floresta (14Km; 4.1%) will warm up the riders. The main ascent of the day will be up Mount Etna, via Due Monti, which is 18.2 kilometers long at 6%.

Then after a steep descent the riders will climb up the volcano once again, but this time around end the climbing much below. Nevertheless, the ascent to Culmine di Scorciavacca is 10.2 kilometers at 6.4% and finishes with only 21 kilometers to go. The way to the finish is almost completely downhill from there, but the run-up to the line in Giarre has some gradient to it.

Estimated start and finish times for Giro di Sicilia stage 4: 09:45 - 15:30CET

Prediction Giro di Sicilia 2023 stage 4:

*** Damiano Caruso, Rafal Majka
** Alexey Lutsenko, George Bennett, Kobe Goossens
* Finn Fisher-Black, Vincenzo Albanese, Louis Meintjes, Walter Calzoni, Matteo Badilatti, Paul Double

Pick: Damiano Caruso