Belgium’s Tim Wellens claimed victory on stage four of the Giro d’Italia in Sicily as British rider Simon Yates closed the gap on race leader Rohan Dennis – but Tour de France champion Chris Froome lost more ground.

Wellens’ impressive stage win, powering through after home rider Enrico Battaglin’s sprint challenge faded, sees the Belgian climb to fourth in the overall classification, 19 seconds off the front.

Froome’s tough start to the race continued, with the Team Sky rider crossing the line 23 seconds behind stage winner Wellens. Froome, who is under investigation for an adverse dope test in last year’s Vuelta, is now almost a minute behind Dennis in the general classification.

Following Monday’s rest day after the first three stages in Israel, the Giro resumed in Catania for a 202 km stage with a testing uphill sprint finish at Caltagirone. Lotto-Soudal rider Wellens was able to fend off the challenge of Canada’s Michael Woods (Education First-Drapac) over the final 1km climb after the peloton had clawed back the breakaway with just under 500m left.

Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) placed fourth behind Battaglin (LottoNL-Jumbo), with the British rider crossing the finish line some four seconds ahead of Dennis to move to third in the overall standings.

“It was a difficult first day back in Italy,” Yates told his team’s website. “It wasn’t one a lot of people had spoken about, with the focus on [Mount] Etna [on Thursday], but we knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

“Another rider lost the wheel to the front guys 1.5km from the finish, so I started the final climb slightly behind. Nevertheless, I managed to have a good result and take a small amount of time to some GC guys, so I think we can be happy with the ride today.”

Australia’s Dennis (BMC) retains the leader’s pink jersey with an overall time of 14 hours 23 minutes and eight seconds, one second ahead of defending champion Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb), with Yates now 17 seconds off the pace.

“Of course I want to stay in the front,” Dennis said. “It’s great to keep the jersey for a little bit longer, the team did everything possible to put me in that position. It was a little bit stressed, but not so much”.

Wednesday sees another hilly stage in Sicily, with riders travelling 153km from Agrigento to Santa Ninfa.

Stage four results: 1 Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal) 5h 17min 34sec; 2 Michael Woods (Education First-Drapac) same time; 3 Enrico Battaglin (LottoNL-Jumbo) ST; 4 Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) ST; 5 Davide Formolo (Bora-Hansgrohe) ST; 6 Roman Kreuziger (Mitchelton-Scott) at 4sec; 7 Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe) ST; 8 Luis León Sánchez (Astana) ST; 9 Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) ST; 10 Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott) ST.

General classification: 1 Rohan Dennis (BMC) 14h 23min 8sec; 2 Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) at 1sec; 3 Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) 17sec; 4 Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal) 19sec; 5 Pello Bilbao (Astana) 25sec; 6 Maximilian Schachmann (Quick-Step) 28sec; 7 Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) ST; 8 Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) 34sec; 9 Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe) 35sec; 10 Carlos Betancur (Movistar) ST.