Garmim-Sharp's Ramunas Navardauskas won stage eleven of the Giro D'Italia.
Egoi Martínez (Euskaltel), Leonardo Duque (Colombia), Juan Jose Cobo (Movistar), Ramunas Navardauskas (Garmin-Sharp), Guillaume Bonnafond (AG2R), Jackson Rodríguez (Androni Giacattoli), Stafano Pirazzi (Bardiani Valvole), Paul Martens (Blanco), Daniel Oss (BMC), Cayetano Sarmiento (Cannondale), Johan Le Bon (FdJ), Vladimir Gusev (Katusha), Serge Pauwels (OPQS), Jens Keukeleire (Orica-GreenEdge), Yaroslav Popovych (RadioShack-Leopard), Salvatore Puccio (Sky) Patrick Gretsch (Argos-Shimano), Evgeni Petrov (Saxo-Tinkoff), Frederik Veuchelen (Vacansoleil) and Danilo Di Luca (Vini Fantini).were in the break which took a good while to get established on a 182km stage from Tarvisio to Vajont (Erto e Casso).
They took a five minute lead with ninety kilometres remaining as talk resounded about rumours of AG2R's Sylvain Georges being forced to withdraw from the Giro after failing a UCI drugs test.
With no-one in the group of twenty escapers threatening the Maglia Rosa worn by Astana's Vincenzo Nibali, the gap went out to 5.35 with 71.2kms to go.
Jackson Rodriquez took the first mountain climb of the day on a road with snow on either side ahead of Stefano Pirazzi, who leads the King Of The Mountains competition.
Patrick Gretsch (Argos-Shimano) decided that the time was right for a solo raid and he went away with 45kms to go, building a 1,18 lead over the chasing group of nineteen riders.
Gretsch took eight points for the sprint with 34kms to go and then the second sprint, before Gretsch was caught by Oss and Navardauskas with 17.5kms to go.
Gretsch crashed so Daniel Oss (BMC) and Ramunas Navardauskas (Garmin-Sharp) went for the win with ten kilometres to go. They were 2.07 ahead of the chasing group and 6.29 ahead of the peloton.
On to the final climb and Ramunas Navardauskas dropped Oss and rode to victory in a time of 4.23.14.
Daniel Oss was second 1.07 back with Pirazzi third at 2.57 with the main field coming in 5.30 down.
Vincenzo Nibali retains his lead in the race going into stage twelve.