Reigning Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins (Sky) completed Wednesday’s 11th stage in the main pack behind winner Ramunas Navardauskas (Garmin-Sharp) to stay fourth overall, two minutes five seconds behind leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) in the Giro d’Italia.

Wiggins entered the Italian Grand Tour as the hotly tipped favourite for overall victory but has suffered a series of calamities including a bad downhill crash, being blocked behind another pile-up and suffering a puncture during the time trial.

"I'm not feeling very good at the moment, I've had a pretty rough 24 hours," Wiggins told Gazzetta dello Sport after Wednesday’s stage.

"I've got a chest infection and a bog-standard head cold. Fortunately in these days, with these kinds of stages, there's just a bit of fighting and you can get through them and hide a little bit. But I just want to try and fight through it and hope that in a few days' time I'll be all right. Most of the team have been sick," the Sky rider added. "It seems to last for three or four days and then you get better."

On Tuesday's first full mountain stage, Wiggins lost 37 seconds to Italian Nibali and was visibly struggling on the steep sections of the final climb. His main rivals will no doubt have taken notice.

Asked if the Giro d'Italia was a tougher race than the Tour de France, Wiggins was refreshingly unequivocal in his reply: "The Tour of Picardie is a bloody hard race if you get sick. There's only so much you can do."