Bardiani's Stefano Perazzi has won the seventeenth stage of the Giro D'Italia.
With all the confusion of stage sixteen still rumbling on, Movistar's Nairo Quintana was in the maglia rosa jersey for a 208km stage from Sarnonico to Vittorio Veneto on a sunny after.
One hundred and sixty riders minus Daniele Colli & Mauro Finetto (both Neri Sottoli), Arnaud Courteille (FDJ), Thomas Dekker (Garmin-Sharp), Alessandro Petacchi (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) and Michele Scarponi (Astana) who failed to finish the carnage that was stage sixteen, started on the stage.
The riders were all together until Enrico Gasparotto (Astana), Matteo Montaguti (AG2R La Mondiale), Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani), Nicola Boem (Bardiani), Marco Canola (Bardiani), Jos Van Emden (Belkin), Daniel Oss (BMC), Oscar Gatto (Cannondale), Johan Le Bon (FDJ), Jussi Viekkanen (FDJ), Daniano Cunego Lampre-Merida), Mattio Bono (Lmapre-Merida), Lars Bak (Lotto-Belisol), Tim Wellens (Lotto-Belisol), Igor Anton (Movistar), Thomas De Gendt (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Serge Pauwels (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Davide Malacarne (Europcar), Simon Geschke (Giant-Shimano), Alberto Losada (Katusha), Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), Philip Deignan (Sky), Evgeni Petrov (Tinkoff-Saxo), Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff-Saxo) & Fabio Felline (Trek Factory Racing) formed a 26 man break with 121kms remaining.
They soon built up a lead and with no-one in the break a threat to the general classification, were 9.15 ahead with 85kms left.
This break was still away when Thomas De Gendt took the climb at Poggio with a lead of 11.10. Riders including Geschke were sliding off on wet roads as Stefan Pirazzi caught up to De Gendt on the front.
Wellens, McCarthy and Montaguti joined Pirazzi and De Gendt and were twenty six seconds ahead of the chasing group and 13.32 ahead of the peloton.
Inside the final kilometre and Stefano Perazzi of Bardian attacked and won in 4.38.11 just beating the chasers led by Wellens, McCarthy, De Gendt and Montaguti.
Perazzi was in tears of delight as he made his way to the podium but said: "We can be proud of ourselves. Bardiani did a great job today."
Nairo Quintana who finished 15.36 down, keeps his pink jersey with a 1.41 lead over Rigoberto Uran.