During the past days some cracks had been occurring in the Sky armour even though no serious harm had been done to Wiggins’ ambitions for overall glory.

Today, however, Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky were compelled to battle to limit their losses after a tough conclusion to stage seven of the Giro d’Italia. Wiggins never looked comfortably on the rainy descent and crashed on a soaking wet hairpin on the drop into Pescara after the weather had closed in on the final 20 kilometres of a violently heaving 177 km route from San Salvo.

The leading contenders, including Wiggins’ GC rivals, arrived one minute and seven seconds down on lone winner Adam Hansen (Lotto-Belisol) into the finish, with the Tour de France winner crossing the line 1:24 further back.

Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) had been among a number of riders to increase the pace on the drop, the Italian himself going down, but ricocheting to finish safely in a lead group of contenders.

Wiggins’ teammates, Rigoberto Urán and Sergio Henao, were given orders to drop back to guide Wiggins to the finish line as overall classification was turned upside down prior to tomorrow’s stage eight time trial. Wiggins, who normally relishes an ITT, sits 23rd overall, 1:32 back on the new maglia rosa, Benat Intxausti (Movistar).

Immediately after the stage, the British team was swift in commenting on the state of their leader. “Bradley’s fine. There’s no physical injury,” team principal, Dave Brailsford said on the Sky website. Ultimately when you have difficult conditions like these and hard racing this type of thing can happen. It’s the Giro.”

“You can have good days and bad days and you have to wait until the end to tot them all up and see where you are. It’s a setback, but Brad’s still very much in the hunt. We’ve now got to take each day as it comes, focus on fully recovering tonight and hitting the time trial hard tomorrow. We’ll see where we are tomorrow night and take stock of the situation then.”

Brailsford also explained the choice to send Urán and Henao back to wait for and assist Wiggins, thus losing time.

“It’s the team’s call,” he explained. “They are here to ride for a leader. When you’re dedicated to a single leader that’s the call that the team made and that’s the right call as far as I’m concerned.”