Casper van Uden surprises by winning the sprint in the 4th stage of the Giro d'Italia 2025

When all eyes were on the presumed duel between Olav Kooij and Mads Pedersen in the highly anticipated sprint finish of the fourth stage of the Giro d'Italia, Dutchman Casper van Uden appeared out of nowhere to give a valuable victory to a Picnic-PostNL team in desperate need of wins now that XDS-Astana has overtaken them in the World Tour classification.

Golden victory for Picnic-PostNL in the 2025 Giro d'Italia

The Giro d'Italia 2025 is now passing through Italian lands after the prologue we experienced in Albania, and it does so in the most traditional way in the race, with practically flat stages to be decided in a mass sprint.

Such was the case in stage 4 of the Giro d'Italia, which connected the towns of Alberobello and Lecce on a 189-kilometer route with hardly any difficulties other than a tricky final circuit through the streets of Lecce that, when viewed on television, continues to raise the debate about the different standards of measurement by the ACP, SafeR, and UCI in different races.

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A stage that the peloton assumed would unfold according to the established script, as evidenced by the fact that the only breakaway attempt, by Spanish cyclist from Polti-Visit Malta, Fran Muñoz, at the 3-kilometer mark, was the one that succeeded. Obviously, being a long stage and with only one rider, his adventure came to an end much further from the finish line than usual, more than 50 kilometers before the conclusion. Not even his early capture encouraged others to attempt an impossible challenge.

A stage without major incidents except for a crash 125 kilometers from the finish line in which, despite not falling, leader Mads Pedersen was involved, leading to the abandonment of Q36.5 cyclist Nickolas Zukowsky. A situation that would repeat itself in the final part again with Mads Pedersen and several of his teammates involved, forcing the Dane to paddle alone to return to the front of the peloton, which likely cost him a significant amount of energy that he would have needed to win this stage.

Aside from that, it is worth mentioning the Red Bull KM, in which, with two bonus places at stake, we saw UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe with Isaac del Toro taking second place, earning 4 seconds of bonus, and Primoz Roglic following to get the remaining 2 seconds.

We arrived at the final kilometers where Visma-Lease a Bike seemed to be perfectly positioned with Edoardo Affini carrying Olav Kooij. However, they did not count on the appearance of the Picnic-PostNL cyclists who snatched the privileged position from them at the right moment and, taking advantage of the two tricky final corners, positioned themselves in front of the last 350 straight meters for their fast man, Casper van Uden, to launch from his ideal distance.

Mads Pedersen was forced to start from beyond the 5th position and, despite a powerful sprint, found himself boxed in on the side of the barriers with no chance of overtaking, relegating him to 4th place in the stage. On the other hand, despite a good start, Olav Kooij failed to reach the necessary top speed to challenge Van Uden's sprint, thus achieving only his 4th victory as a professional and undoubtedly the most important in the six years he has been a professional cyclist. A World Tour stage in a grand tour that comes as a breath of fresh air for Picnic-PostNL, which, after the last stage, saw XDS-Astana surpass them in the three-year World Tour classification.

Stage 4 Classification

1. Casper van Uden (Picnic-PostNL) 4h02'21''
2. Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) +00''
3. Maikel Zijlaard (Tudor) +00''
4. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) +00''
5. Max Kanter (XDS-Astana) +00''
6. Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +00''
7. Sam Bennett (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) +00''
8. Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) +00''
9. Ben Turner (INEOS Grenadiers) +00''
10. Matteo Moschetti (Q36.5) +00''

General Classification

1. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) 11h44'31''
2. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +07''
3. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) +14''
4. Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +21''
5. Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +22''
6. Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +25''
7. Max Poole (Picnic-PostNL) +33''
8. Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious) +34''
9. Michael Storer (Tudor) +36''
10. Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +40''