On a dramatic day where a sick Bradley Wiggins (Sky) fell out of GC contention, Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) once again finished safely in the bunch to defend his overall lead. With Wiggins now out of the battle, there is one less rival for Nibali to fear but the Italian is keen to stress that there are still multiple threats to his maglia rosa.

What should have been a calm and eventless day for the sprinters turned into a dramatic day for the GC contenders when torrential rain made the descents treacherous and the many corners on the finishing circuit extremely dangerous. Vincenzo Nibali avoided all the dangers and managed to finish safely in the bunch to once again defend his overall lead.

Afterwards, Nibali was happy to get another potential obstacle out of the way and pointed out that the difficult conditions had required extra carefulness from his Astana team.

"It was a difficult day for everybody," he said. "The wind and the rain at the start were both very strong. My teammates worked hard to keep the race as safe as possible. On a day like today we know that any mistake could become serious, and so we pay a lot more attention to the details."

“We were warned that the descent today was going to be bad, so we took special care. Then, after the descent, Omega took charge of the stage and gave chase all the way to the finish.”

The big victim of today's proceedings were the man who was expected to be Nibali's closest rival in the battle for the overall win, Bradley Wiggins. Suffering from a chest infection the Brit lost 3.17 and has now surrendered all opportunities for a second consecutive grand tour win.

Nibali was, however, tight-lipped when it came to the significance of the Brit's defeat and chose to point out that there was still numerous contenders for the Giro win.

“I can only think of myself, of recovering and keeping my health, he said. "(Sick teammates, ed.) Aru and Tiralongo are both much better, although today Vanotti and Gruzdev worked hard to keep me in the leading position. I have to keep an eye on Urán who is riding very well. The general classification is still very bunched with Evans very close. Scarponi too is pedalling well.”

The Astana team has kept a cautious approach at all time of the race and today was no different, with sports director Alexandr Shefer stressing that the it is the ability to recover that will make the difference in the very hard third week of the race.

"After two weeks of racing the riders are in a new world, and each extra effort requires an equal measure of recovery," he said. "Today is was the rain and the cold, tomorrow it will be the extra distance, and next week it will be the mountains. There are still a lot of days left in the Giro d'Italia, and the time for relaxing will be after the race is finished."

Nibali will hope to get safely through another flat stage tomorrow where a few climbs in the final may spice things up a bit. At 254km it will be a very long day in the saddle and if the weather is once again horrendous it could be another testing day for the race leader.

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