No one asked Giro d'Italia stage 4 winner Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) during the post-race press conference if he was a Bob Dylan fan, but after Monday's events, the line from Dylan's famous song, "I can't help it if I'm lucky I can't help it if I'm lucky," certainly resonated with the defending French National Champion.

To a considerable degree, DeMare got lucky himself. His superb sprinting form put him in good position for the mid-pack Portella Mandrazzi climb when Bora Hansgrohe went on a rampage and dropped Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates), and for the final dash on Villafranca Tirrena.

But as De Mare himself later confirmed, one of his greatest pieces of luck was a super-tight sprint finish by himself, Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe), and Davide Ballerini (Dečuninck-Quick Step) that gave him his second Giro in two years! He took his second stage win in two years at the Giro only because he made the decision to throw his bike out at the last moment.

"I didn't know if I could have won," De Mare said. "I saw Ballerini celebrating with his teammates, so I believed the radio told me I was the winner. I didn't know until he told me to get on the podium and I still wasn't sure. So I couldn't taste victory like I usually do."

De Mare, who became the first Frenchman to win a Giro stage in the national champion jersey since Laurent Jalabert won three in 1999, said after the sprint that he had the same impression as when he won by a narrow margin in Paris-Nice, but did not know it had happened He said he had no idea it had happened. And in the end, he said, "luck was on my side."

That was not the only moment when luck smiled on Demare. Although there was no news about what happened to this unfortunate animal, Demare was fortunate enough to stay upright and out of trouble.

"It was a very unusual finale. First, Gaviria and (Elia) Viviani were 25-30 seconds behind me and I wanted to pull them off the back. Then I was told that Viviani had caught up," DeMare said.

"Then one dog crossed the road and made a U-turn. I thought it was coming back toward the group, so I had to brake hard and accelerate quickly to regain my speed."

In addition to these problems, Groupama-FDJ's Ramon Sinkeldam, who usually plays a key role in De Mare's lead-out, was in Gaviria's group, forcing the French team to use his teammate Miles Cotson.

Demaret said that Scotson's gap in the final kilometer was due to hard acceleration and powering on.

"But I was able to confuse my rivals and bring them into a sprinting contest. Cofidis closed the gap and I was able to conserve my energy for the last 400 meters," Demare said.

At last year's Giro, it took Demare a week to win the first stage in Modena, Italy, the center of vinegar production; a victory in 2020, six days early, is nothing but bitterness in the Frenchman's mouth.

"It's perfect. I wanted to come to the Giro. Psychologically, we restarted from scratch this year, and we've kept the momentum going since August.

"It's a relief to win in my first real venue and it takes the pressure off me for the sprint finishes to come. It wasn't a perfect sprint today."