Maglia rosa on the line in Saturday's time trial

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It will be a high stakes game for the general classification hopefuls at the Giro d'Italia with Saturday's 54.8km individual time trial set to provide the first real selection for the overall.

The fortunes of pre-race favourite Bradley Wiggins (Sky) are likely to be focus of the afternoon, having lost 1:24 to his principal rivals for final overall victory and dropped to 23rd overall, 1:32 off the maglia rosa of Benat Intxausti (Movistar) due to a crash late on Stage 6. The long and technical race against the clock was likely one for the Brit but any after-effects of the crash won't be known until late on Saturday with switchbacks, climbs and cobbles littering the parcours.

"You can have good days and bad days and you have to wait until the end to tot them all up and see where you are," said Sky's team principal Sir David Brailsford following the conclusion of Friday's stage. "It's a setback, but Brad's still very much in the hunt. We've now got to take each day as it comes, focus on fully recovering tonight and hitting the time trial hard tomorrow. We'll see where we are tomorrow night and take stock of the situation then."

Intxausti's stint in the pink is expected to be brief with Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) the best-placed of the overall contenders, five seconds back, three ahead of Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp), 11 ahead of Cadel Evans (BMC), 14 ahead of Robert Gesink (Blanco), 52 ahead of Michele Scarponi (Lampre-Merida) and 1:27 up on Wiggins.

Nibali wasn't too hopeful of his chances saying: "The favourite is Wiggins and I hope I lose the least amount of time possible but I don't want to say how much," while Evans is instead looking for a marker against his rivals.

"It's a really long and really hard and demanding time trial and we really don't have a point of reference of how I am time trialing compared to the other guys," the Australian said. "I will first of all concentrate on doing my best and, of course if I continue to move up on the general classification, that's optimal."

Former Australian under 23 time trial champion and last on general classification Jack Bobridge (Blanco) will be the first rider to leave the start house in Gabicce Mare with riders leaving at one-minute intervals until Katusha's Luca Paolini departs three minutes behind Tom Danielson (Garmin Sharp) at 3.15pm local time.

Giro d'Italia Stage 8 start times