Australian cycling's dream start to this Giro d'Italia is a distant memory, with Simon Gerrans crashing yet again and withdrawing from the race.
His setback came two days after compatriot Richie Porte crucially lost nearly three minutes because of a puncture and a controversial two-minute penalty.
Porte lost another nine seconds in Thursday's 12th stage to race leader Alberto Contador.
The Spaniard finished second, three seconds behind stage winner Philippe Gilbert of Belgium.
Porte was 12th on the stage and remains 12th overall, three minutes and 18 seconds behind Contador.
The Tasmanian started this Giro as one of the title contenders and was sitting pretty in third overall before his stage-10 disaster.
Porte will have a clearer idea of where he stands after the long stage-14 individual time trial.
But the race is over for Gerrans, continuing his wretched season.
Australian team Orica-GreenEDGE were trying to set up the stage for Gerrans when he fell on a wet descent.
He finished the stage, but team director Matt White later confirmed Gerrans would pull out.
"It's obviously really disappointing for Simon today," White told cyclingnews.
"There hasn't been much time for medical staff to assess too deeply yet but the good news is that whilst it is sore it looks to be just some skin off.".
It is the fifth time since late last year that Gerrans has crashed.
His broken collarbone while mountain biking in late December ruined his early-season Australian campaign.
Then he suffered an elbow fracture at his comeback race, the Srade Bianche in March.
That prompted an overhaul of his European racing schedule, with Gerrans racing the Giro for the first time since 2009.
He also crashed twice last month at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, where Gerrans was defending champion.
Gerrans' fortunes appeared to be changing earlier this month at the Giro when Orica-GreenEdge won the opening teams time trial.
That put him into the race leader's pink jersey for one day, before teammate Michael Matthews won stage two and took it from him.
Matthews held the famous maglia rosa until stage four, when fellow Australian Simon Clarke finished second to keep it at Orica-GreenEDGE for one more day.
As chances for more stage wins dwindle, Matthews could make an early withdrawal from the Giro ahead of the Tour de France in July.
Matthews was supposed to make his Tour debut last year, but had to pull out because of a training crash in the week before the race.
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