“Today was a different day” - Jhonatan Narvaez delivers badly-needed Giro d’Italia win as UAE respond to nightmare opening in Bulgaria

After the damage of Bulgaria, simply keeping UAE Team Emirates-XRG visible in the 2026 Giro d’Italia might have looked like enough. Instead, on the race’s first day back in Italy, Jhonatan Narvaez turned a depleted team into stage winners again.

UAE had lost Adam Yates, Jay Vine and Marc Soler after the horror crash on stage 2, leaving only five riders in the race and forcing the team into an immediate reset. Yet stage 4 to Cosenza became their strongest answer yet. Jan Christen attacked late in pursuit of both the stage and the maglia rosa, before Narvaez finished the job in the reduced sprint.

Speaking to Cycling Pro Net after the finish, Narvaez admitted the victory carried extra weight after the team’s brutal start to the race.

“Yeah, we had a bad crash on stage two, but today was a different day,” he said. “We managed well in the final kilometres, but for the team it was not nice to lose three riders in the second stage. We will keep the spirit high and keep fighting in the next days.”

Movistar had done much of the damage earlier in the stage, ripping the race apart on the Cozzo Tunno climb and dropping many of the sprinters, including Paul Magnier, Jonathan Milan, Dylan Groenewegen and Tobias Lund Andresen. Their work looked designed for Orluis Aular, who survived the climb and entered the final kilometres as one of the clearest sprint options left in the reduced front group.

UAE, though, had two cards to play. Christen first took six bonus seconds at the Red Bull sprint, strengthening his position in the overall standings, before attacking again with around 1.5 kilometres to go. His move forced the remaining contenders to chase at a moment when the technical finale made organisation difficult.

Asked whether the late action had been planned between himself and Christen, Narvaez pointed first to the work done by Movistar before explaining how UAE handled the closing kilometres. “No, I think I will give all the credit, Movistar did really well from the climb,” he said. “They put all the team there. They did a great job and I think in the end we played our cards.”

Christen’s attack was not only about the stage. The young Swiss rider was also within reach of the pink jersey after starting the day close on general classification, and Narvaez made clear that his team-mate had freedom to chase that opportunity. “Jan was trying to take the maglia rosa,” Narvaez explained. “He is a young guy, he is a really strong guy, and for me it was just about the sprint.”

That division of roles worked perfectly. Christen’s move disrupted the finale and Narvaez stayed patient behind, positioning himself for the sprint as the road twisted through the closing turns.

“I managed well the last corners,” Narvaez said. “You have to fight for the position. I think there were five corners in the last kilometre or something like this, so this was complicated.”

Narvaez’s victory does not erase the scale of UAE’s losses. Yates, Vine and Soler were all out of the race before the Giro had properly reached Italy, leaving the team without its main pre-race GC structure and forcing an immediate rethink.

But stage 4 showed what remains. Christen is suddenly active near the top of the standings, Mikkel Bjerg and Antonio Morgado give the team further options, and Narvaez has already delivered a stage win from a reduced, selective finale.

The Ecuadorian said the stage had not been a specific target from the start, but the parcours suited his range perfectly once the race became too hard for the pure sprinters. “Not really,” he said when asked if he had marked the day out before the Giro. “But for a guy like me, like some people say, I can do whatever I want in the mountains, in the hilly stages, in the flat. So I just have to race smart.”

That intelligence proved decisive in Cosenza. Movistar controlled much of the day, Aular looked well placed, and Christen forced the late chase. Narvaez, though, had enough left to finish off UAE’s first real response to the chaos of Bulgaria.

He also pointed to the preparation behind his return to this level, crediting the support around him and the freedom he had been given before the Giro. “I have a great team in my home, I mean this is my wife,” Narvaez said. “She prepared everything for me. I’ve been training three months in Ecuador. I did a good preparation. Also the team gave me the opportunity to stay at home doing altitude. I appreciate all the things to come here in a good condition.”

For UAE, the Giro has already changed beyond recognition. They arrived in Italy reduced, bruised and without the riders who had shaped their original plan. By the end of stage 4, they had a win, a rising GC option in Christen, and proof that their race can still be far more than damage limitation.