Sir Bradley Wiggins remains in contention for the Giro D'Italia after fighting back to the peloton on a day when a solo effort from Katusha's Maxim Belkov saw him win the ninth stage.
A thrilling 170km stage from Sansepolcro to a wet Firenze saw Maxim Belkov (Katusha), Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani Valvole), Giovanni Visconti (Movistar), Juan Manuel Garate (Blanco), Fabio Felline (Androni Giacattoli), Robinson Chalapud and Jarlinson Pantano (Colombia), Ricardo Mestre (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Michel Golas (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Tobias Ludvigsson (Argos-Shimano), Alessandro Proni (Vini Fantini-Selle Italia) and Evgeni Petrov (Saxo-Tinkoff) get away early.
With speeds averaging 39.872kmph, their lead was 3.41 as they went into the last one hundred kilometres.
As the climbs started, Pirazzi and Chalpud went away with Pirazzi taking the nine points ahead of disgruntled Chalapud, who felt that the Bardiani rider cut him up.
Some five minutes ahead of the peloton, the duo were thirty seconds ahead of chasing ten riders as the rain came down.
Onto the 957m Vallombrosa and with 68kms to go, Katusha's Maxime Belkov caught up to the front two.
After FDJ's Arnold Jeannesson abandoned along with Francesco Chicci and Thomas Gil Martinez, Chalapud attacked with 66.5kms to go.
Chalpud came to a stop and waited for Belkov to join him and Pirazzi who went away to take the 15 points over the summit of the category one climb.
Team Sky's Sir Bradley Wiggins who was in fourth place in the general classification, a minute and sixteen seconds down on Vincenzo Nibali, started to lose time on a peloton which was 6.23 back on Pirazzi.
The Italian's time on the front was soon over as shortly onto the 20km long descent, Maxime Belkov, in his second Giro, shot past Chalpud and then Pirazzi to take the lead in the Tuscany mist and rain.
With 45.1kms to go, Astana's Dmitriy Gruzdev came a cropper on the wet roads, sliding until his fall was stopped by a brick wall. Thankfully, he was able to remount and carry on as Belkov increased his lead on the chasing group to 1.42 and 6.52 to the peloton.
As we moved to the forty kilometres to go mark, Wiggins, who is being reported as not totally at ease on his bike, was 39 seconds down on the Maglia Rosa group and then he was a minute and ten seconds down, whilst up the road, Belkov took the intermediate sprint points.
Thankfully, Wiggins, had four of his team mates with him and they paced him back to the peloton where they could keep an eye on the race leader with 25kms remaining.
More KOM points for Belkov followed with Pirazzi taking third to add to his haul and put him in the King Of The Mountains jersey.
Colombia's Jarlinson Pantano and Argos Shimano's Tobias Ludvigsson tried to chase down Blekov as his lead to the Maglia Rosa group was now 3.30 on the start of the final Fiesole climb.
Belkov coasted over that climb, taking the points and only had the descent into Firenze left to negotiate.
And negotiate it, the 28 year old Russian did, powering home to record his biggest win ever in a time of 4.31.31.
AG2R's Carlos Betancur had made a move with 5kms to go to try and get past Pantano and Ludvigsson and in the final few metres, Betancur took second place 46 seconds down on Belkov but ahead of Pantano and Ludvigsson before Cadel Evans led in a peloton which contained Bradley Wiggins who finished 25th in the same time.
Vincenzo Nibali keeps his Maglia Rosa jersey going into the rest day ahead of Cadel Evans by 29 seconds, 1.15 ahead of Blanco's Robert Gesink and 1.16 ahead of Bradley Wiggins.
Cadel Evans now leads the points competition from Mark Cavendish.