Lotto Belisol's Adam Hansen has won the seventh stage of the Giro D'Italia.
Today was one for the climbers in a 177km stage from San Salvo to Pescara, which featured the climbs of Bucchianico , Villamagna, Chieti-Pietragrossa, Chieti-Tricalle, Santa Maria de Criptis and San Silvestro, four of which were King Of The Mountains classification climbs plus one sprint.
The stage started without Orica GreenEdge's Leigh Howard, who broke his collarbone in one of the many crashes yesterday and BMC's Klaas Lodewijck (BMC) and after only three kilometres of racing there was another crash which saw Mattia Cattaneo (Lampre-Merida) crash and retire from the race
A breakaway formed on the only really flat section of road, some twenty nine kilometres into the stage and saw Emanuele Sella (Androni Giacattoli), Ioannis Tamoridis (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Maarten Tjallingii (Blanco), Dominique Rollin (FdJ), Adam Hansen (Lotto Belisol) and Pim Ligthart (Vacansoleil-DCM) get a lead of 2.14.
That was out to 6.40 with 95kms to go before Ligthart crashed going into a hairpin bend just before the feed zone after 85kms.
Ligthart finally got back to the leaders after changing his damaged bike and with their lead going out to 7.17, Emanuele Sella was now the race leader on the road.
As speeds averaged 39kmph, the gap to the peloton which included Mark Cavendish back in the red points jersey after his second victory in this race on stage six, dropped to 3.46 with 54.3kms to go.
Sella took the first King Of The Mountains climb at Villamagna ahead of Tamoridis and Hansen.
On the Chieti-Pietragrossa, Fabio Taborre of the Vini Fantini team tried to bridge the two minute gap to the six escapers. Sella again took the points at the summit to put him just three points behind Kings Of The Mountains leader Gianni Visconti, ahead of Hansen and Rollin.
On the wet roads, Hansen took the points at the intermediate sprint on the Chieti Tricalle.followed by Sella who crashed trying to make a right hand turn with 31kms to go. Sella worked his way back to Hansen and the pair continued on with a three minute lead over the peloton who will take part in a time trial tomorrow.
Sella, looking the worst for wear, had to let Hansen got with 21kms left and it was the Australian who took the maximum points on the Santa Maria de Criptis.
Blanco were leading the charge to bring back Hansen who had a 46 second lead on Sella and 2.30 on the peloton.
Estonian Champion Kangert rode away from the peloon as Hansen on the final San Silvestro climb increased his lead.
Astana's Vincenzo Nibali attacked but with 7.8kms to go, he went down with a Katusha rider and Diego Rosa.
Hansen took the maximum points for the climb to give him twelve King Of The Mountains points as Sir Bradley Wiggins, looking in pain, dropped backed from the chasing group before being guided back by his team mates.
Hansen kept going and took the win in a time of 4.35.48 and said to Daniel Lloyd: "When the breakaway form, I was feeling good and took my chance. Lotto Belisol have won here for the last four years and maybe it was my turn today."
Battaglin and Di Luca were second and third, 1.07 back on Hansen.
Luca Paolini lost his leaders jersey to Movistar's Beñat Intxausti who leads by five seconds from Vincenzo Nibali.