The 24-year-old Movistar rider triumphed on a day where Britain's Tour de France champion Chris Froome survived a scare after crashing during the uphill climb in the final stages of the race.

He was paced back to the peloton by his Team Sky team-mates but looked out of sorts in the closing kilometres.

Carapaz left it late before bursting clear to pass lone Dutch and LottoNL–Jumbo leader Koen Bouwman to take the biggest win of his career,

He crossed in 5 hours 11min 35sec at the end of the 209km mountain stage from Praia a Mare to hold off the chasing group by seven seconds.

"I'm very happy, I have done a lot of work ahead of the Giro," Carapaz said afterwards.

"Of course having the first Grand Tour win - it's emotional.

"I had good legs, so I decided to attack from far out - more than 2km to go. 

"I decided it was the right time to go alone, because I knew I couldn't win in a sprint."

Ecuador duly became the 34th country to register a stage winner at the Giro d'Italia.

Italy’s Bora-Hansgrohe rider Davide Formolo took second place after holding-off Groupama-FDJ's Frenchman Thibaut Pinot, who took third.

Britain's Simon Yates cross fifth as the Mitchelton-Scott rider retained his overall race lead.

He remains 16 seconds clear of Team Sunweb's Dutch defending champion Tom Dumoulin, who is second, with Yates' team-mates Esteban Chaves of Colombia another 10 seconds back in third.

Carapaz also leapfrogged Chris Froome to move four seconds ahead of the Briton and eighth overall, 1:06 off the lead.

The peloton will tackle another mountain stage tomorrow over a 225 kilometres route from Pesco Sannita to Gran Sasso.