A 'monster' stage today, 5 big climbs, 250km, should have an impact on the GC
A group of 16 go clear early on with Ponzi taking the intermediate sprint ahead of Berard and Kreuziger.
Garzelli, Costagli, Berard, Ratiy, Fertonani, Popov, Ortega, Brandt and Kozontchuk then attack. Followed by Kreuziger, Sonnery, Krasnoperov and Mahoric
But real interest picked up as Rujano attacks
He attacks past the other attackers, with Garzelli doing his best to keep up
Talabardon, Barredo and Wu also attack - and then nearer the top we have attacks from Devolder, Solis, Ardila, Pellizotti, Casar, Rujano, Cataldo, Hacechky, Anton and Sella.
Nibali crosses the first, with Barredo in 2nd
Devolder crosses 3rd with Solis and Ardila also scoring
All riders are caught, apart from Nibali. He starts pulling away from the peleton, which was down to 48 riders but the slower pace allowed 29 more to catch up
Nibali takes the 3rd climb as Rujano and Cataldo lead the attacks for pts from the pack, crossing 5'20 behind Nibali
Nibali builds his lead up to a peak of 7 minutes onto the 4th climb
But the pace is picking up behind, David de la Fuente taking control and the peleton have been torn apart from 72 to 30, with Theo Eltink (16th overall) amongst those dropped
Nibali crosses the 4th climb first
But as Pellizotti wins the battle for 2nd, Nibali's lead is down to just 2'20.
Along with Devolder, Rujano, Cataldo, Ardila and Sella, Pellizotti has managed to get a gap of around 90 seconds/2 minutes on the main pack - it may be worth pressing on but they dont, sitting up and dropping back.
Now onto the 4th and penultimate climb, Di Luca takes to the front of the peleton
Di Luca splits the group of 28 into 2 sets of 14 - 12th overall Igor Anton is the best placed rider in the 2nd group
Devolder, Ardila, Cataldo, Iglinski are then dropped from the front 14.
This leaves Di Luca, Sella, Rujano, Contador, Pozzovivvo, Karpets, Marzano, Cunego, Pellizotti and Ricco in the group.
And they have caught Nibali
Nibali keeps up with them though and with 1.2km to the summit Pozzovivvo is dropped!
Sella and Pellizotti attack for the KoM pts while Nibali also manages to muster the energy to take 3rd.
Pozzovivvo has now found himself a minute down
The group of 10 then splits in 2 on the final climb - with Ricco, Contador, Cunego, Karpets, and Sella going ahead
But Nibali manages to bring all 10 back together
The group splits again - Contador, Ricco, Cunego, Sella, Karpets and Pellizotti getting a gap
Rujano and then Nibali catch up
But Nibali starts to struggle and goes off the back again, back to Di Luca and Marzano who are still trying to to catch up again. And seemingly from nowhere, Pozzovivvo has reached them!
He has overturned a 90 second deficit and rejoins the front group
Theres attacks near the top - Ricco, Cunego, Pellizotti and Sella
Ricco takes the points ahead of Cunego, and the pair have a gap
They now look to make the most of their gap, with a minutes on the 9 chasers
The lead goes up to 2 minutes on the chase
while Devolder, Lovkvist, Ardila, Cataldo, Solis, Nocentini and Iglinski
A further minutes back are Casar, Phinney, Anton, Rohregger, Van Huffel, Perez Fernandez, Niemiec, Rodrigues and Rogers
Ricco and Cunego continue to pull away, up to 3 minutes and then to 4!
There simply isnt urgency in the descent of the 9 men chasing, and this Giro is starting to become a 2 horse race
The chase is so slow that they are caught by the group of 7 that were at one stage 2 minutes behind
The lead is up to 5 minutes inside 20km to go as at last the chase group shows some aggression. Pellizotti and Pozzovivvo lead the way as pretty much all of the 16 riders attack with what little attack bar they have - and then once they get some more agin they will attack oncemore
It doesnt make much sense, but thats what happened - and it was too much for Nibali who is finally paying the price for his long attack
One off the back, one off the front - Pellizotti gets a gap
The new found pace of the chasers limits the gap to 5 minutes to Ricco and Cunego, but they probably wont mind too much as they are now firm favourites for the 2 top spots in GC, less than halfway through the race. Attention now turns to the stage victory
Ricco leads into the final kilometre, Cunego waiting on his wheel
He waits until the final few hundred metres and makes his move
Cunego wins the stage! His first stage win of the race
Franco Pellizotti finishes 3rd at 5'04
With Sella taking 4th ahead of Contador and Devolder at 5'37
Nibali struggled over the end of the stage and comes in 18th at 8'17
Rogers then leads in a group of 6th at 9'09, with Igor Anton in this group
It was over an hour and a half before the final finishers Verbist, Jorgensen and Bodrogi cross the line - but they are outside the time limit. As are 14 others including the likes of Mark Cavendish.
Daniele Bennati and Alessandro Ballan can consider themselves somewhat lucky, they finish in the last group to be inside the time limit and live to fight another day - with 2 possibly sprints coming in the next 3 stages.
