Andrea Guardini stunned Mark Cavendish in a sprint finish at the end of the 18th stage of the Giro d'Italia in Vedelago.
Guardini came past the world champion in the closing 100 metres of the 139km run from San Vito Cadore to land another stage win for the Farnese-Vini team.
The first half of the stage was dominated by a break, but with points in the red jersey competition up for grabs, the group was pulled back to give Cavendish the chance to win the bonus sprint.
Another break developed, including previous stage winner Lars Bak, but hard riding on the front by a number of teams ensured the final flat stage of the race would end in a sprint.
Cavendish appeared to get a perfect leadout by Geraint Thomas, but as soon as the Welshman peeled off, Guardini struck and poached a lead the Manxman could not make up.
The duo then powered towards the line and it was the Italian who prevailed, with Cavendish taking second and Roberto Ferrari (Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela) in third.
"I knew I had good legs and wanted to anticipate when Cavendish was going to sprint - that's the only way to beat him," said Guardini afterwards.
"It's a big day for me and the team and I'm incredibly happy."
Cavendish had the consolation of extending his lead in the points classification to 29 points from Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha), with three stages remaining in the battle for the maglia rossa.
With the field finishing together, Rodríguez remains top of the overall standings, 30 seconds in front of Ryder Hesjedal and 1:22 ahead of Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale). Team Sky duo Rigoberto Urán and Sergio Henao are fifth and 10th respectively, with Urán retaining the young rider's jersey.
With the finish in Vedelago 929 metres below the start in San Vito di Cadore it was always going to be a fast stage - with an average speed of over 49km/h - and a four-man break of Manuele Boaro (Saxo Bank), Stef Clement (Rabobank), Pierpaolo De Negri (Farnese Vini) and Angelo Pagani (Colnago-CSF) got away early but were never allowed to open up a lead much over three minutes.
That was closed down in eyecatching fashion by Team Sky as the intermediate sprint point approached after 84km at Cesiomaggiore, reeling the break in with a kilometre remaining to tee up Cavendish for the maximum eight-point haul.
A second four-man break then went clear after that point, with Clement again featuring, this time along with Mickaël Delage (FDJ-BigMat), Olivier Kaisen (Lotto-Belisol) and Martijn Keizer (Vacansoleil-DCM).
But with Team Sky's Ian Stannard almost single-handedly driving the peloton, their advantage was capped at a minute and gradually brought back as the closing stages approached.
When it was all back together Stannard and Juan Antonio Flecha continued to drill it on the front before Saxo Bank moved en masse to take over the pacesetting in the closing 3km.
Bernhard Eisel and Thomas then took Cavendish well inside the flamme rouge before the all-out sprint for the line from 200 metres out.
A very different test awaits over the next two days with an epic double-header back in the mountains to sort out the general classification, starting with Friday's 198km trek from Treviso to Alpe di Pampeago/Val du Fiemme.
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