Dutchman Danny van Poppel won the 12th stage of the 2015 Vuelta a Espana on Thursday despite suffering a puncture about 10-km from the finish line.
The Trek Factory Racing rider was dropped by a speeding peloton but fought his way back and eventually prevailed against South African Daryl Impey (Origa GreenEDGE).
Belgian Tosh van der Sande (Lotto-Soudal) came home third in the 173-km leg from Andorra to Lleida.
Fabio Aru of Italy retained the overall leader’s red jersey for the Astana team. He heads Spain’s Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) and Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) by 27 and 30 seconds respectively.
The stage started without Tour de France champion Chris Froome who abandoned the race after fracturing his foot following a crash in Wednesday’s punishing mountain leg.
A five-man breakaway group took shape early on but they were reined in on the final straight after Giant-Alpecin had worked their way to the front of the peloton looking to set up a bunch sprint for John Degenkolb.
The German, however, was ultimately boxed in and came home a disappointing fifth. (Writing by Julien Pretot,; Editing by Tony Jimenez)
Stage 12 Brief Results:
- Danny van Poppel (Netherlands / Trek) 4:02:11″
- Daryl Impey (South Africa / Orica) ST
- Tosh Van der Sande (Belgium / Lotto)
- Nikolas Maes (Belgium / Etixx – Quick-Step)
- John Degenkolb (Germany / Giant)
- Jempy Druecker (Luxembourg / BMC Racing)
- Tom Van Asbroeck (Belgium / LottoNL)
- Kristian Sbaragli (Italy / Team MTN)
- Jose Joaquin Rojas (Spain / Movistar)
- Leonardo Duque (Colombia / Colombia)
General Classification After Stage 12:
- Fabio Aru (Italy / Astana) 47:14:30″
- Joaquim Rodriguez (Spain / Katusha) +27″
- Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands / Giant) +30″
- Rafal Majka (Poland / Tinkoff – Saxo) +1:28″
- Esteban Chaves (Colombia / Orica) +1:29″
- Alejandro Valverde (Spain / Movistar) +1:52″
- Daniel Moreno (Spain / Katusha) +1:54″
- Mikel Nieve (Spain / Team Sky) +1:58″
- Nairo Quintana (Colombia / Movistar) +3:07″
- Louis Meintjes (South Africa / Team MTN) +4:15″