Stage 12

The road

At the start

The shortest road stage of the race

Nothing changed at Vajont: Nibali by forty-one seconds from Evans, with Urán and Wiggins a little over two minutes back. Today is a hundred and thirty-one kilometres out of Longarone with two small climbs and a finishing circuit in Treviso — and Mark Cavendish has won all three bunch sprints so far.

How it was won

1. 197 km to go

   The break goes down, and waits

   Belkov loses the front wheel leading the escape down a slick descent and takes Marcato, Felline and Lammertink with him. Only Bert De Backer stays upright — and he slows and waits until all four have picked themselves up and got back on.

2. 235 km to go

   Wiggins dropped off the Montello

   The rain has not stopped all day. Over the last categorised climb the sprinters' teams finally wind it up, and on the descent Bradley Wiggins comes off the back of the maglia rosa group — a minute down, on a stage with no mountain in it at all.

3. 313 km to go

   Two minutes becomes one

   Cannondale and Omega Pharma halve the break's lead in seven kilometres. When the five leaders cross the line to start the finishing circuit in Treviso they have twenty-seven seconds; the Wiggins group passes more than three minutes behind them.

4. 4At the line

   The hundredth win

   The catch is made five hundred metres from the line, which leaves just enough road. Cavendish takes his third sprint out of three at this Giro, from Bouhanni and Mezgec, and the hundredth victory of his career.

The result