Ciao! and welcome to live coverage of stage five of the Giro d'Italia, a rolling 233km ride from Praia a Mare to Benevento, a hilltop town around 50km east of Naples. Some say it'll be a sprint, others a breakaway, while many envision a similar script to yesterday...

The FDJ team of Arnaud Demare and the Astana army of Vincenzo Nibali have come to the front of the peloton behing Tom Dumoulin's Giant-Alpecin troupe. Interspersed among them all are the Lotto-Soudal outfit of Andre Greipel. The gap is down to 5:15 for the four escapees.

Yes, that crash came just minutes ago - we've been shown TV replays of Oss losing his front wheel on the bend, sliding out and slamming into a metal pole of a fence with his chest. That could have been much worse than it was - and it's amazing the Italian wasn't winded from that blow.

CRASH: Daniel Oss has come off his bike and is nursing some cuts and torn clothes. It's unsure whether or not he came off just now - as the TV images went live - on the descent after the intermediate sprint, or if it was an earlier incident... We'll try and find out.

It's not just Marcel Kittel's birthday today - Aussie veteran Adam Hansen turns 35 today. The Lotto-Soudal man is riding his 14th consecutive Grand Tour in what is proving to be a sensational run - especially seeing that he's completed them all.

The lead of the four escapees - Oss, Brutt, Txurruka and Foliforov - is down to 4:45 at the second intermediate sprint at Palomonte. Once again it was BMC's Oss who took the intermediate sprint points to draw level with Maarten Tjallingi (LottoNL-Jumbo) in the rather niche intermediate sprint classification.

The second intermediate sprint comes atop an uncategorised climb at the town of Palomonte. He's the break grappling with that ascent now...

Confirmation of the first intermediate sprint results: Daniel Oss picked up the 20 points ahead of Foliforov and Txurruka. Frenchman Arnaud Demare (FDJ) led the peloton over the line ahead of Elia Viviani (Teak Sky) and Boy Van Poppel (Trek-Segafredo).

Confirmation from Dimension Data of that withdrawal - it seems that Fraile has been suffering with illness as well as the after effects of his crash.

News coming through of the withdrawal of Spain's Omar Fraile (Dimension Data) at the feedzone. The race's first blue jersey wearer crashed badly yesterday and has clearly been struggling. That's a big blow - he looked in good nick and would have been an asset in the mountains. Fraile won the polka dot jersey in his debut Vuelta last season, remember.

The only rider in this break who has won a stage on a Grand Tour before is Russia's Pavel Brutt, who triumphed in stage 5 of the 2008 Giro. Txurruka has ridden 16 Grand Tours but has yet to snare a win despite his aggression in the hills. The closest he came was back in 2009 when he finished second in stage 13 of the Tour - albeit some four minutes down on the winner that day, Heinrich Haussler.

The break has passed through the first intermediate sprint at Polla as well as the feedzone at Buccino. The gap has dropped to just below seven minutes.

The virtual maglia rosa or race leader is now Spanish veteran Amets Txurruka who started the day in 72nd place at 5:25. Can he hold on over the hilly second half of this stage? None of those climbs are categorised but there's barely a flat bit of road, save for the run into Benevento.

We now join the race LIVE with those four escapees now riding a whole seven minutes ahead of a peloton which includes all jerseys - the pink (Tom Dumoulin), the red (Marcel Kittel), the blue (Damiano Cunego) and the white (Bob Jungels).

The gap for the four leaders was up around three minutes after 60-odd kilometres.

A break was allowed to go after the first climb of the day. Four men edged ahead: Daniel Oss (BMC), Alexander Foliforov (Gazprom), Amets Txurukka (Orica-GreenEdge), Pavel Brutt (Tinkoff).

Yes, indeed, it goes to script. No break is allowed to leave the peloton on the early climb thanks to the marshalling of Nippo-Vini Fantini, whose road captain Cunego takes the points at the top of the summit to double his lead in the KOM standings to 14 points over Nicola Boem's seven.

The blue jersey is being worn by Damiano Cunego (Nippo-Vini Fantini) today after he took maximum points over yesterday's second Cat.3 climb. There's an early Cat.3 climb on the agenda today so we may see the Little Prince get himself into an early move...

Kittel lost the pink jersey yesterday but he's in the red jersey today as leader of the points competition. Despite the slightly uphill finish on cobbles, many think that this could come down to a bunch sprint and if it does that man Kittel - on his 28th birthday - will be the man to beat.

The remaining 195 riders rolled out of Praia a Mare this morning under some sunshine after some hefty showers this morning in the area. It's the second longest stage of the race.

Dumoulin, the Giant-Alpecin rider who won the race's opening time trial in Apeldoorn in his native Netherlands, led the chasing pack over the line five seconds in arrears to move back into the maglia rosa after overnight leader Marcel Kittel cracked on the series of climbs that peppered the second half of the stage. Kittel's Etixx-QuickStep team-mate Bob Jungels, the Luxembourg national champion, moved up to second in the overall standings, 20 seconds behind Dumoulin, with Ulissi rising to third thanks to 10 extra bonus seconds procured at the finish.

Yesterday, Italy's Diego Ulissi of Lampre-Merida won a lumpy stage four of the Giro d'Italia on the Mediterranean coast ahead of Dutchman Tom Dumoulin, who moved back into the race lead. After some expert pacing by his Italian team-mate Valerio Conti, Ulissi rode clear of a group of 12 riders on a stinging ramp outside the Calabrian coastal town of Praia a Mare before holding off a select chasing group of race favourites to secure the fifth Giro d'Italia scalp of his career in the 200km stage from Catanzaro.