4th placed Mauro Santambrogio (Vini Fantini) was a surprise victim on yesterday's 16th stage of the Giro d'Italia which had been expected to be a calm one for the race favourites. Having lost 2.10 to his podium rivals, he moved down to 6th in the GC but the Italian vows to fight on despite yesterday's struggles.

Mauro Santambrogio has been one of the season's biggest revelations. Having left his domestique duties on the mighty BMC team to take up a leadership position at Vini Fantini, he emerged as one of the strongest climbers in the early part of the season and finished in the top 10 in Tirreno-Adriatico and 2nd behind Vincenzo Nibali in the Giro del Trentino.

The Italian has not any previous experience in fighting for a high overall place in a grand tour and so many were curious to see how he would handle the strains of a three-week race. Up until yesterday, everything was fine and the Italian had taken a stage win on the Jafferau climb on his way to a solid 4th place overall, just 1 second off the podium.

However, the many predictions of the Italian starting to struggle in the third week proved right yesterday when the Italian was the main victim of the hard pace set by the race favourites on the surprisingly tough Andrate climber. The Italian had to fight for himself in a third group on the road to limit his losses and only the help of teammate Oscar Gatto made him get through the day with his options still open.

The Italian has always claimed to target a stage win and then see where that would leave him in the GC at the end in Brescia. Hence, the Italian was not too disappointed and vowed to continue his fight.

"Many people had predicted a bad day for me, and finally I had one, " he said. "I am calm, serene, I have nothing to worry about. My Giro is anyway fantastic and I'll do my best to arrive at Brescia in the best possible position."

Team manager Luca Scinto suggested that he had made a mistake by not asking his riders to stay closer to the team leader but pointed out that the Giro until now has been highly successful for the professional continental team.

"Maybe today I have made a mistake," he said. "I could have asked all riders  to remain with Mauro, but the effort on the descent by Gatto has limited the damage. A bad day is normal, everyone usually has one. Maybe we should have realized it a little earlier, but the last mountain was harder than expected. Anyway, we are really satisfied with our Giro which has been unique. We have always been on the attack and we have won one of the most important and legendary stages."

Santambrogio will hope to get easily through today's stage to Vicenza and then he hopes to strike back on the three consecutive days in the Dolomites. Starting at 14.15 you can follow today's race on CyclingQuotes.com/live.