Giro d'Italia: Diego Ulissi wins stage four as Tom Dumoulin regains lead

Diego Ulissi claimed his fifth Giro d'Italia stage win

Diego Ulissi escaped to a solo victory on stage four of the Giro d’Italia as Tom Dumoulin regained the overall lead.

Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) attacked out of a late breakaway group on the final climb of the day and then hung on down the descent to the finish in Praia a Mare to win by five seconds.

Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) surged out of the main chase group in the final 1km to take second place, just ahead of Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) in third.

With previous race leader Marcel Kittel (Etixx - Quick-Step) having been dropped earlier in the stage, Dumoulin returned to the top of the general classification and opened up a 20-second lead over second-placed Bob Jungels (Etixx - Quick-Step).

Ulissi, who now has five Giro stage wins to his name, climbed to third place overall and is also 20 seconds back.

Ulissi left his fellow escapees behind with about 9km to go

He told Eurosport: "It's a really nice feeling. I'm from Italy so it's great to win in the Giro. When I was small I dreamed about things like this. It's a beautiful emotion."

All of the race favourites finished in the main chase group six seconds down on Ulissi, leaving Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) 26 seconds down on Dumoulin in sixth overall, Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) 31 seconds adrift in seventh and Mikel Landa (Team Sky) 47 seconds back in 16th.

Dumoulin told Eurosport: "It was a bit harder than I expected. It was a tricky final and probably too hard for Marcel, but then we were riding on it, I thought, 'This is definitely too hard for Marcel'.

Tom Dumoulin has opened up a 20-second lead at the top of the general classification

"We decided to make the race hard to be able to take pink, and we did that."

The Giro continues on Wednesday with a 233km rolling fifth stage from Praia a Mare to Benevento. Find out more about the stage in our race guide.

Stage four result

1 Diego Ulissi (Ita) Lampre-Merida, 4:46:51

2 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, +5sec

3 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo, same time

4 Alejandro Valverde (Esp) Movistar, +6

5 Gianluca Brambilla (Ita) Etixx - Quick-Step, st

6 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana, st

7 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha, st

8 Matteo Busato (Ita) Wilier-Southeast, st

9 Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica-GreenEdge, st

10 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky, st

General classification

1 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, 14:00:09

2 Bob Jungels (Lux) Etixx - Quick-Step, +20sec

3 Diego Ulissi (Ita) Lampre-Merida, same time

4 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo, +24

5 Georg Preidler (Aut) Giant-Alpecin, st

6 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana, +26

7 Alejandro Valverde (Esp) Movistar, +31

8 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Astana, +35

9 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky, +37

10 Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica-GreenEdge, st