Despite Vincenzo Nibali's strong showing in the short time trial in Budapest over the weekend, he did not win the maglia rosa as Vincenzo Nibali returned home to Messina for Wednesday's Giro d'Italia.

Mount Etna is Nibali's starting point, and the story of his first climb of Mount Etna at age 10, when he had to be towed by his mother's car, has been recounted repeatedly throughout his career.

In truth, Nibali's goal in this race was vague from the start. His role was supposed to be to support Miguel Angel Lopez while he roamed, attacked, and created a spectacolo as he saw fit. But when Lopez unexpectedly abandoned early in stage 4, Nibali became the complete leader of Astana Cazacustan.

By late afternoon, however, the outlook was already very different. Nibali was far away from the leading group on the upper slopes of Mount Etna. For a moment, he might have felt like his distraught 10-year-old self after losing a battle with a volcano.

He quickly accepted his fate and limited his losses as much as possible on the final approach to the summit.

"It wasn't bad, but I couldn't keep up with the GC group," Nibali told La Gazzetta dello Sport after crossing the finish line.

"The pace was too high. It was a high pace," Nibali added.

In the overall standings, Nibali is now 32nd, 4:16 behind Maglia Rosa's Juan Pedro Lopez (Trek-Segafredo) and 2:34 behind Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco).

Just as Miguel Indurain returned to his native Vilava the day after his defeat at Autacam in the 1996 Tour de France, this disappointment will not diminish the good feeling Nibali will receive in Messina on Wednesday afternoon.

Indeed, while Indurain's decline was as sudden as it was shocking, Nibali's trajectory as a Grand Tour contender has been steadily descending since his last podium in the 2019 Giro. Losing a few minutes in Etna was more of a disappointment than a disaster, and Nibali should still find other ways to make what is expected to be his final Giro appearance. It would be truly surprising if Nibali does not make an aggressive cameo appearance as the race nears its end.

Nibali's stablemate Lopez will have no such luxury. He crashed in the opening time trial in Palermo and abandoned the Giro in Sicily after the event was postponed due to a pandemic.

This time, Colombiano stopped racing just a few kilometers into the Italian road.

After the stage, Astana Cazacustan doctor Emilio Magni's first diagnosis was "inflammation of the tendon in the left quadriceps muscle, probably due to overload or an old injury."

He told RAI that the team had expected Lopez to spend a few days treating the injury, but instead he left the race barely beyond the neutral zone of the Avola.

"I was worried, but I knew I could make it," he said.

In a statement released by Astana Cazacustan on Tuesday, López explained that the pain got worse after the start of stage 4. Lopez had returned to Astana this season after an unfortunate break at Movistar, where he controversially abstained suddenly on the final day of the Vuelta a España.

"The team staff did everything possible to help me recover over the past few days, but the race conditions made it impossible," Lopez said. 'I was hoping to get better day by day and be able to overtake, but today I couldn't pedal normally because of the pain in my thigh.' "

Giuseppe Martinelli, sport director of Astana Cazacustan, expressed his frustration after the finish at the summit of Mount Etna. He told reporters that Lopez had already undergone tests on his rest day and that his prognosis was good.

"I was pretty calm this morning because the prognosis didn't look as bad as we thought," he said. 'But in the neutralization zone, he said he couldn't do it anymore. He stopped immediately. We tried to convince him and [Alexander Vinokurov] tried to tell him to hang in there.

With Lopez out of the race and Nibali out of contention for the overall, Astana Kazakstan will have to rethink its plan to pursue a stage win.

"When you lose your leader, you certainly have to reform everything.