Buongiorno and welcome to live coverage of stage 1 - sorry, stage 4 - of the Giro d'Italia. After three days in Israel and one day flying the circus back into Europe, the 101st edition of La Corsa Rosa hits Italian soil with the first of three stages on the island of Sicily.

Impressive crowds here in Sicily today as spectators line the streets to watch the riders edge through another town. The five escapees - three Italians, one Russian and one Frenchman - have 3'05" over the peloton, which is being led by the BMC team-mates of race leader Rohan Dennis.

The riders are approaching the town of Carlentini as the road gradually heads up towards our first Cat.4 climb. They were just 10m above sea level half an hour ago and are now around 200m high. The summit of the first climb comes after 86km or riding (116km from the finish) and is 779m high - the loftiest point in today's hilly stage. The gap is down to 3'20".

Meanwhile, at the finish in Caltagirone...

Not bad, eh?

Race leader Rohan Dennis and his BMC team have gone to town with a pink bike for the Australian now the race is on Italian soil. A reminder that Dennis leads the overall standings by one slender second over Tom Dumoulin, with Jose Goncalves (Katusha) third at +13, Alex Dowsett (Katusha) fourth at +17 and Pello Bilbao (Astana) fifth at +19. Britain's Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) - a good tip for the win today - is sixth at 21 seconds.

The gap for the five leaders is up to three minutes now so it looks like the day's break has been well and truly established. They are currently riding along a freshly tarmacked road - it's as black as it is smooth and pristine.

It's no surprise to see Signore Barbin and Frapporti in the break today: Barbin is the current king of the mountains on 5pts and leads Frapporti by 2pts. Today there are 6pts up for grabs so the battle for the maglia azzurra should intensify. Both Italians were in Sunday's break, while Barbin took the points over the summit of the first categorised climb of the race on Saturday.

If the race isn't visiting Etna until Thursday's stage 6 summit finish, then the active volcano is still making its presence known to the Giro.

Here's some more info on today's stage route including the 13% ramped finish.

Five riders have managed to open up a small gap over the pack. They are Quentin Jauregui (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Marco Frapporti (Androni-Sidermec), Enrico Barbin (Bardiani-CSF), Maxim Belkov (Katusha-Alpecin) and Jacopo Mosca (Wilier-Triestina).

It's worth adding that today's stage was initially meant to be 198km but the organisers had to add in a 4km detour because of road works.

The attacks have come thick and fast in this Ardennes-style stage but nothing has yet got the better of the peloton, which is rampaging along at a fair lick. With hardly any flat roads, today's the kind of day that could suit the likes of Tim Wellens, Simon Yates, Alexey Lutsenko and Giovanni Visconti - while the ramped finale could play into the hands of Miguel Angel Lopez or Esteban Chaves, both of whom are more punchy than the likes of Froome and Dumoulin.

Early puncture for defending champion Tom Dumoulin of Team Sunweb. The Dutchman was on scintillating form to win the opening time trial in Jerusalem before seemingly wilfully conceding the pink jersey to Rohan Dennis one day later. He remains the big favourite for glory in Rome - and he signalled his intent by taking 37 seconds on rival Chris Froome on Friday. No worries with the wheel change - Dumoulin is back on his way.

It's pretty active from the outset but none of the early moves have stuck. A reminder that we have 175 riders remaining in this race - just the one withdrawl: Kanstantin Siutsou of Bahrain Merida, who crashed in training ahead of the opening time trial, was forced out with three broken vertebrae.

After a little jaunt through the neutralised zone, the flag is waved and the stage is under way. It's show time.

A reminder of what the riders have in store today - a 202km stage from Catania to Caltagirone that's pretty much consistently up and down. With two categorised climbs on the cards we should expect a battle for KOM points as well as an interesting final ramp to the line. There could even be a shake up in the overall standings, who knows?

If you missed the action on Sunday, on-fire Italian Elia Viviani won his second stage in as many days with a brave sprint to deny Sacha Modolo and Sam Bennett in the third and final stage in Israel as Australia’s Rohan Dennis (BMC) retained the pink jersey.