Ecuador’s Jhonatan Narvaez won stage four of the Giro d’Italia, just three days after being involved in a major crash which resulted in three of his UAE Emirates-XRG team-mates being forced to abandon the race with serious injuries.

Narvaez, 29, comfortably out-sprinted Venezuela’s Orluis Aular of Movistar in the uphill finish in Cosenza in southern Italy.

Italy’s Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek was third and claimed the overall leader’s pink jersey after previous leader Guillermo Thomas Silva of Uruguay finished more the 12 minutes behind.

Britain’s Ben Turner of Netcompay Ineos Cycling was fourth after helping team-mate Egan Bernal of Colombia recover from losing ground on the stage’s category two climb.

The three-week race’s first real climb saw the sprint specialists and heavier riders dropped from the peloton, which was 14.5km and had gradients of up to 11%.

UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s young Swiss rider Jan Christen launched off the front of the peloton with just two kilometres remaining, forcing the peloton to chase him.

Narvaez was able to save energy as other teams were forced to work hard to reel his team-mate in, and he had more punch when it came to sprinting for the line.

UAE’s legendary four-time Tour de France-winning team leader Tadej Pogacar is not at the Giro as he is preparing for the Tour in July, and the team lost three riders in Saturday’s crash, including one of its biggest contenders for pink in Britain’s Adam Yates, whose identical twin Simon won last year’s edition of the race.

Yates, 33, left the race with concussion alongside Australia’s Jay Vine, who was also concussed, and Spain’s Marc Soler, who suffered a pelvic fracture, on stage two of the opening three stages in Bulgaria.

Narvaez was seriously injured in a crash at the Tour Down Under in Australia at the beginning of the season in January.

“It’s really big for me, coming after my Australian injury,” said Narvaez after the stage.

“This victory is for my team-mates after they crashed on stage two.”

Hot favourite for the overall victory, two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark, finished with the first group of riders and remains 11th overall, 10 seconds behind Ciccone.

Christen is second and Germany’s Florian Stork of Tudor Pro Cycling third, both four seconds down.