Race leader Nibali enjoyed the fruit of the hard work provided by his team mate Andrei Grivko who sacrificed himself to protect Nibali’s lead from attacks by Valverde in the closing stages of today’s race.

"We came through a village in a crosswind and that broke up the peloton into a smaller group. Then we rode to a small climb and more riders fell off the back, leaving about 40 riders, including me, Vincenzo, Paolo Tiralongo and Alessandro Vanotti. All day our job was to keep Vincenzo out of the wind, and keep his General Classification lead safe from any competitors," Grivko said on the Astana website.

"When we saw the final selection with about 10km to race, first Vanotti attacked solo off the front, and he led for about a kilometre - then I attacked twice. The tactic was to prevent Valverde from sprinting to the finish and taking 10 bonus seconds. In the end our attacks didn't work for victory, because there was a strong headwind and the Lampre team was working very hard to catch us. But Valverde didn't get any bonus seconds, Mollema got away because Lampre was too tired to chase him, and Vincenzo is still in red," Grivko said.

Bauke Mollema (Belkin) won the stage, while Nibali kept his overall lead of 28 seconds to American Chris Horner (RadioShack-Leopard) and 1’14” to Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (Movistar).