Jonas Vingegaard storms to a fourth Giro summit win, stretching his lead past 4 minutes

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CARÌ, Switzerland (AP) — It’s four out of four for Jonas Vingegaard.

The Danish rider soloed to victory at the end of the tough 16th stage of the Giro d’Italia to extend his overall lead to more than four minutes on Tuesday.

It was the fourth mountain-top finish in this year’s race and a fourth win for Vingegaard, who triumphed atop Blockhaus, Corno alle Scale and Pila. It was a first victory for him in the leader’s pink jersey, however.

On Tuesday, Vingegaard attacked halfway up the top-category slog to the finish in Carì, with 6.6 kilometers (4 miles) remaining and no one could stay on the Team Visma-Lease a Bike rider's wheel.

Vingegaard beat Felix Gall by 69 seconds, with Jai Hindley two seconds further back.

“My teammates and myself were very motivated for it — we wanted to try to win in the pink jersey,” Vingegaard said. “And obviously it can also go wrong, so we chose the first option to do it because if we would fail then we would have another one as well.

“It was a very nice, very hard climb," he added. "It’s a long climb, it took around half an hour I guess. Again, my teammates today did an amazing job ... I had to do the rest and I’m happy once again that I can pay off my teammates.”

The 29-year-old Vingegaard is racing in his first Giro in a bid to win all three Grand Tours. He won the Tour de France in 2022 and ’23 and last year clinched his first Spanish Vuelta title.

Gall moved into second overall, 4:03 behind Vingegaard. Thymen Arensman is third, 4:27 behind.

“The second place is super nice,” Gall said. “They (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) showed again who is in charge here, also as a team, and it’s really impressive. And Jonas is, he’s just doing his thing, and yeah…”

Afonso Eulálio, who had worn pink for nine stages before ceding it atop Pila on Saturday, dropped from second to fifth after cracking on the final climb and crossing the line three minutes after Vingegaard.

The stage crossed the border into Switzerland, with five classified climbs on the 113-kilometer (70-mile) route from Bellinzona to Carì.

Wednesday’s 17th stage returns to Italy and is a 202-kilometer (126-mile) route from Cassano d’Adda to Andolo that includes three, third-category climbs.

The Giro ends on Sunday in Rome. The women’s Giro is from May 30 to June 7.

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AP cycling: https://apnews.com/hub/cycling