Richie Porte dropped to fourth overall at the Giro d'Italia after picking up a puncture in the final kilometres of stage 10.

With the help of his Team Sky team-mates the Tasmanian was forced to chase back to a flying peloton as the race approached the finish in Forlì at full speed.

The result was a loss of 47 seconds to the peloton, pushing Porte one place down the general classification to fourth, one minute and nine seconds back on leader Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo).

Team Sky riders began to check up with around seven kilometres to go to wait for Porte, with Bernhard Eisel, Sebastian Henao, Salvatore Puccio and Kanstantsin Siutsou helping to pace their team leader.

Matters were made even more difficult with the peloton embroiled in a frantic chase of their own, as four breakaway riders timed their efforts well to stay clear.

On a day that looked set to be a straightforward bunch sprint it was Nicola Boem (Bardiani-CSF) who took the victory, out-sprinting compatriots Matteo Busato (Southeast) and Alan Marangoni (Cannondale-Garmin) at the finish. The peloton arrived home just 18 seconds later, with Elia Viviani 16th across the line.

A huge points haul for victory also saw Boem move into the red points jersey, 20 points ahead of Viviani to compound a tough day for the team.

“The first thing I did was to try and hold the bike up, it happened at a roundabout and that’s it, a bit of bad luck. I think everybody’s going to have a bit of bad luck over 21 days. We’ll just have to see what happens now," Porte said.

“There’s not much you can do…it’s a strange one, you’ve been fighting for one or two seconds and then you have a little bit of bad luck. But there’s a long way to go.

“It was nice to see my team stop and help me and then Simon Clarke and Michael Matthews, you know, good mates, helping me as well. You have to take the positives out of it, my legs felt great and I live to see another day.”

"I don't think anyone can be happy about losing time," said Sports Director Dario Cioni. "It's part of the game but from tomorrow it's game on again.

"We had Elia up for the sprint so he stayed there. The rest that could stopped immediately. But of course between making the communication and when the riders stop there is always a few seconds, and at that speed it's quite a few metres. I think the guys did a good job and we could have lost more time.

"There is plenty more racing to come and we will keep fighting all the way to Milan."