BMC's Philippe Gilbert has won stage twelve of the Giro D'Italia.
Race leader Alberto Contador of Tinkoff Saxo led the 187 riders out on a 190km stage from Imola to Vicenza (Monte Berico) which was flat for the first half and hilly with three climbs for the second half.
The peloton was altogether for the opening thirty two kilometres and still together at the seventy kilometre gone mark.
With a hundred kilometres left, a break was allowed to form and in it was Patrick Gretsch (AG2R-La Mondiale), Davide Appollonio (Androni-Giocattoli), Enrico Barbin (Bariani-CSF), Kenny Elissonde (FDJ) and Nick Van der Lijke (LottoNL-Jumbo).
Twenty kilometres later, they had a lead of 1.36 but three kilometres as the rain came down, Carlos Betancur and Darwin Atapuma went down.
The escape was thinned out to three riders in Appollonio, Gretsch and Van der Lijke.as they went through Torreglia.
Their lead was small so Patrick Gretsch went on his own in an attempt to stay away but was caught with 57.2kms as an Androni rider in Gianfranco Zilioli put in an attack at the foot of the Castelnuovo categorised climb.
Simon Geschke, a contended for the KOM competition shot away to take the three points but Benat Intxausti of Movistar was second and the Spaniard kept his lead in the blue jersey competition.
Lotto Soudal's young rider Louis Vervaeke took to the front and the 21 year old Belgian in his first season as a professional, was brave on the descents and had a 24 second lead over Ziloli with 41.6kms left.
Onto the Crosara and Vervaeke was in sight for the peloton which had the race leader on the front. Vervaeke was caught with 30.4kms to go
Intxausti went away and took the points on the climb as Contador upped the pace.
Simon Gerrans of Orica GreenEdge hit the deck on the descent, Geniez did well to stay on his bike after going wide on a turn before Steff Clement went crashing.
Franco Pellizotti was next to do the front running with a lead of nineteen seconds over Kangert of Astana.
Philippe Gilbert attacked with 6.7kms left to try and mix things up as Kangert joined Pellizotti for the final kilometre to the up hill finish.
Tanel Kangert went away but the peloton were closing and they caught him. So Gilbert went and won in 4.22.50 with Alberto Contador who takes six seconds in second place, three seconds later, followed by Ulissi, Geschke, Gattaglin, Tiralongo, Izaguirre, Betancur, Van Den Broeck and Landa with Richie Porte in 12th place.
Contador has extended his lead over Fabio Aru to seventeen seconds.
Silvan Diller, Gilbert's team mate said: "The final kilometres were good for Phil. The first few climbs were really hard and it was hard to control but we tried it again and everything was perfect."
Gilbert said: "Today was a hard stage. Yesterday, we lost some confidence but we had a meeting and decided to go for it today and everything worked out."
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