Enrico Battaglin surged ahead at the perfect moment to win the fifth stage of the Giro d’Italia on Wednesday as Chris Froome and most of the other favourites finished in the main pack.

Rohan Dennis held on to the overall leader’s pink jersey with a one-second lead over the defending champion Tom Dumoulin, with the four-time Tour de France winner Froome 55 seconds back in 19th place.

Giovanni Visconti, a Sicilian looking to impress before his home fans, led coming round the final turn with 200 metres to go before Battaglin accelerated to take his third career Giro victory.

Battaglin, who rides for Team LottoNL-Jumbo, finished third in a slightly tougher stage on Tuesday. “The finish was a bit different to yesterday. Yesterday was really a powerful sprint on a really steep climb,” said Battaglin, who also won Giro stages in 2013 and 2014. “Today was a steep climb but at two kilometres to go I had a little bit of time to rest and recover and do a really good sprint.”

Visconti crossed the line second and José Gonçalves of Portugal finished third, both with the same time as Battaglin.

Battaglin clocked slightly more than four hours over the 153-kilometre (95-mile) leg from Agrigento to Santa Ninfa in south-western Sicily.

The start of the stage was delayed for 15 minutes due to an accident on the racing route that left a motorcycle rider in serious condition.

Simon Yates, the Briton who won the young rider classification at last year’s Tour de France, sits third overall 17 seconds behind Dennis, who claimed the lead after the second stage. “It was a nice day on the bike, on quite a slow pace because of the headwind,” said Dennis, an Australian with BMC.

“I felt a bit of stress every now and then but I am glad to be in the Maglia Rosa. We’re only on day five, that means 16 days to go. Tomorrow will be another story with the Etna. I’m looking forward to see how I’ll go up there.”

Stage six concludes with an arduous ascent up Mount Etna that should shake up the standings. Then the race heads over to mainland Italy and climbs up the peninsula to the defining legs in the Alps.

The only overall contender who struggled on Wednesday was the Astana rider Miguel Ángel López, who misjudged a turn with six kilometres to go, rode straight off the road and fell into high grass. He finished 42 seconds behind.