'I was completely empty' - Arrieta takes breakthrough Giro victory with stunning late comeback

Arrieta had been one of two UAE riders in the day's 13-man breakaway alongside Jhonatan Narvaez, the Ecuadorian winner of stage 4 in Cosenza. 

The Spaniard was visibly emotional in his flash interview, struggling to find words for what the win meant after a difficult opening week in which UAE had lost Adam Yates, Marc Soler and Jay Vine before the race had even reached Italy.

"I don't know what to say. I'm really happy to achieve this victory," Arrieta said. "It means a lot for me because the crash, you know, all the teammates they went home. The Giro is special for me."

The Spaniard had looked beaten on the final climb when Eulálio dropped him inside the last 2km, but Arrieta refused to give up.

"When I lose Eulálio in the last two kilometres, I was like, not possible," he said. "But then I keep pushing. I see that he cannot go faster than me, and then when I take his wheel it's like, fuck, maybe I can win one stage."

The Bahrain Victorious rider had launched his sprint early on the rising finish, the kind of move that often punishes a rider who goes too soon. Arrieta sat on the wheel until the closing 100 metres before launching past for the win.

"I was completely empty in the last kilometres, but I know Eulálio is also the same, and we both deserve the victory."

The win caps a remarkable comeback for the 23-year-old, who has been quietly building toward this moment after working as a domestique for UAE through 2024 and 2025. The promotion to a protected card across this Giro, brought on partly by the team's casualties earlier in the week, has paid off in the kind of way few would have predicted.

"I was coming to help, to have some opportunities, and I think today was a good day," Arrieta said. "I want to say thank you to my girlfriend, to my family, because they were always there, also my trainer."

For UAE Team Emirates-XRG, this is now two stage wins in two days after Narvaez's victory in Cosenza on Tuesday. The team have spent the opening week working with a depleted squad after losing Yates, Soler and Vine on stage 2, and the back-to-back wins represent a remarkable turnaround on what could have been a write-off Giro for one of the WorldTour's strongest teams.

The team's reconfiguration has been impressive in its speed. Narvaez had been at the Giro on the back of a three-month altitude block in Ecuador as his comeback race after January's crash at the Tour Down Under. Arrieta had come into the race in a supporting role rather than as a protected card. 

With UAE's GC ambitions effectively over once Yates abandoned, the team have switched seamlessly into stage-hunting mode, and the results have followed.