High altitude training camps are not simply about filling your legs with kilometers and your lungs with rarefied air. When Guillaume Martin chose his training site ahead of the Giro d'Italia, he chose an impressive location.

Located on the south side of Mount Etna, Refugio Sapienza will host the finish of stage 4 of the Giro on Tuesday afternoon. During his time with Cofidis, Martín usually trains at altitude in the Sierra Nevada, but in the run-up to the Giro d'Italia, this moody volcano has proven to have an irresistible appeal.

"There were many reasons. There were the obvious reasons like weather and altitude, but there was also the idea of soaking up the Italian atmosphere before the Giro," Martin said.

"We could have scouted the Etna stage, and it was a combination of things."

Martin began his stay in Sicily in early April, visiting Catania and Taormina with his girlfriend, then staying in Rifugio Sapienza at 1,900 meters above sea level to prepare for the Giro. His coach, Samuel Berenouhet, visited the island to accompany him for the second half of the camp.

The cisplicative attempt to climb the same mountain trail multiple times probably appealed to the philosopher in Martin, but the volcano was already a place of happy memories for the Frenchman. He won the 2019 Giro di Sicilia atop Mount Etna and had already trained on Mount Etna with the Wanty-Gobert team the season before.

The Giro returns to Mount Etna for the fourth time in six years on Tuesday, and while the finale at Rifugio Sapienza is familiar, the approach from Biancavilla is different. Whereas in 2018, when Esteban Chaves took the stage win, he tackled a low, tree-covered slope, this time the route continues toward the mountain lodge, with a 22-km-long finish climb.

"It's the same finish line as before, but the climb is different. I think it's the most difficult aspect of the climb. It's really steep and I think you can already see the gaps," said Martín, who warned that the Giro's first summit finish would be complicated by its location, just after moving from Hungary to Sicily.

"I think the hardest thing to manage is the rest day. We have to fly in early Monday morning and recover from that. The stage itself is relatively short, but there are ups and downs before you get to Etna. That's the difficult part."

Martins will arrive in Sicily more than a minute behind his rivals in the overall standings after losing positions to them in the first two days.

The Frenchman lost 12 seconds in a skirmish in Visegrad on the first stage when he was caught in a split, but in the time trial in Budapest the following afternoon he closed the gap to Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jeico) to 45 seconds.

"The feeling in the time trial was very good and the result was good," Martin said.

"After the first stage I was a little disappointed, obviously losing a few seconds. I wasn't sure if it was due to the fall or my shape. Now I'm relieved.

In 2021, Martín was playing with the idea of trying to win a Grand Tour stage instead of the overall classification, but his consistency paid off with an eighth overall at the Tour de France and a ninth at the Vuelta a España. With this kind of endurance, he is confident that he will be in the hunt for the overall win in this Giro from the start, and he expects to start climbing the friendly terrain of Mount Etna.

Meanwhile, the need for the Cofidis team to maintain its position in the World Tour has no bearing on Martin's participation in this Giro. A top overall finish in Verona would, of course, contribute significantly to his UCI points, but as in April, Martín is in Italy entirely of his own volition.

"It is above all my own personal choice and I am very happy that the team followed it," said Martín.

"Actually, if you want to get a lot of UCI points, Grand Tours is not necessarily the best way. Then it's better to do a number of one-day races. I am very happy that Cofidis has agreed with my wish to participate in the Giro, despite the fact that I have to score points."