With today's victory at Chiavari, Jhonatan Narvaez has become the Ecuadorian with the most wins at the Giro: 5, ahead of a legend like Richard Carapaz, 2021 Olympic champion and winner of the 2019 Giro. Third stage win after those in Cosenza and Fermo for Narvaez, who came to the Giro after a three-and-a-half month break following his crash at the Tour Down Under on January 24th.

"There was hard work before coming here – explains Narvaez, 29, who had also won at the Giro in Cesenatico 2020 and Turin 2024 -. And then you always have to think about how you handle the bike, it's like in motorcycle racing, it doesn't depend only on the bike: take today's stage, people crashed in front of me, it doesn't depend only on your legs, you also have to be careful about how you approach the downhill curves".

Head-to-head with Enric Mas, beaten in the sprint and then a nice embrace after the finish line: "I was afraid that someone could catch up from behind, and we started watching each other".

In the second stage in Bulgaria his UAE Emirates lost Adam Yates, Vine and Soler, and reinvented the Giro: "We never lose motivation, we went hunting for stages. When you race and have the mentality to race hard, it works. So today: we lost the breakaway three times and the team worked hard to help me catch it. It took time, the stage was tough. And then at that point I was on someone's wheel, I ate and drank and followed the others. It was a stressful day, you knew there would be a big fight for the breakaway". Narvaez's contract expires at the end of 2026: "Excellent question for my manager, I think he's very busy at the moment".

And on the fight for the final classification, the UAE Emirates Ecuadorian sees it this way: "The Giro is long, we've done half the stages, and the last week will be decisive for anyone. Naturally Vingegaard is the favorite, but his rivals are also strong and came here in their best form".