The rain-battered eleventh stage of the Giro d'Italia has seen more riders abandon on the teams of pre-race favorites Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) and Cadel Evans (BMC Racing), leaving less horsepower to pull back a massive split in the peloton that saw 56 riders slip away early in the stage.
Vinokourov, who it currently in the maglia rosa, lost Italian Enrico Gasparotto and Kazakh Valentin Iglinskiy, which trimmed the Astana team down to five riders plus their leader. The world champion also lost two riders, with Italian Mauro Santambrogio and American Jeff Louder unable to finish the stage. This leaves the BMC Racing with only four riders to help Evans make up what will surely be a massive time gap by the end of the stage.
BMC Racing is down to American Brent Bookwalter and Swiss riders Michael Schar, Florian Stalder and Danilo Wyss, while Astana has Ukranian Andriy Grivko, Spaniard Josep Jufre, Slovenian Gorazd Stangelj and Kazakhs Roman Kireyev and Alexsandr Dyachenko.
Saxo Bank's Richie Porte made the front group and should take over the overall lead at the end of the day, assuming there are no more surprises.