After an up and down day in the saddle that started in the Unesco World Heritage Site of ‘I Paesaggi Vitivinicoli del Piemonte’, Phil Bauhaus secured Bahrain Victorious’ best result of the the 2024 Giro d’Italia so far: 3rd on Stage 4.

The parcours split exactly in half, with the first 95km almost all uphill, and the second predominantly down. The route wended its way to the Ligurian coastal town of Andora, famed for its ‘Blue Flag’ beaches, but once the ‘red flag’ was passed at 1km to go, a bunch sprint was guaranteed. Bauhaus crossed the line third, behind Jonathan Milan (LTK) and Kaden Groves (ADC). After 4’16” of variable weather, crashes, tension and several abandons, the German was satisfied with the outcome:

“I was believing in the victory actually, but given the situation and everything that happened today, i think we can be happy with third place. To be honest the most important thing was that everyone stayed safe, especially as we were descending at high speeds of up to 80km/h for long periods, and I hope everyone who went down is ok.

A three-man breakaway was given a leash of over 5’30” but was never going to make it. With 4km remaining, double TT World Champion Filippo Ganna (IGD) attacked, and quickly forged ahead, before being chased down by our Italian lead-out man Andrea Pasqualon. That effort meant Phil was one helper down as the group approached the finish, but he was convinced it had been the correct strategy at that moment:

“It would have been good for Andrea to be with me for a bit more slipstream in the last kilometre, but we had to try to bridge to Ganna. There had been a tailwind on the coast and everything came back together, but I had spent a bit too much energy, so as Trek have the strongest lead-out here, I tried to position myself on their last wheel and fight for 2nd or 3rd place.“

All in all it was a fairly controlled day from the start. The peloton went quite hard up the only categorised climb, the Colle del Melogno, and then it started to rain. The road became slippery and there were several crashes, one involving TBV road captain Damiano Caruso. Caruso has suffered no serious consequences, but having given his best after his fall on Saturday, Torstein Træen was forced to abandon the Giro. As a result, Bahrain will be down to seven riders when the race continues tomorrow with another flat-ish stage between Genova and Lucca.