Danny Van Poppel Wins Vuelta a España Stage 12

Last updated : 03 September 2015 By Covsupport News Service

Danny Van Poppel of Trek Factory Racing took the victory on stage twelve of the Vuelta a España.

A stage which sees the race in its 70th edition leave Andorra and return to Spain, was without Chris Froome who broke a bone in his foot and on this 173km stage from Escaldes-Engordany. Andorra to Lleida, a group of five got away early.

Maxime Bouet (Etixx-Quick Step), Miguel Ángel Rubiano (Colombia), Jaco Venter (MTN-Qhubeka), Bert Jan Lindeman (LottoNL-Jumbo), and Alexis Gougeard (Ag2r-La Mondiale) were in that break and they were 2.25 ahead after twenty two kilometres and 3.14 ahead twenty two kilometres later.

In a race that Tinkoff Saxo had decided to stay in, the only categorised climb was the Coll de Boixols climb which was a category two climb that was 15.8kms long with an average gradient of 5%.

Maxime Bouet took the points on that climb as their lead to the peloton which included the new race leader Fabio Aru, went out to five minutes and was 5.37 after eighty kilometres.

With 22kms,, their lead had dropped to 2.11 and then 1.44 with going into the final fifteen kilometres.

The peloton looking for a sprint which happened at the same venue in 2010 when Mark Cavendish won, had the gap down to less than a minute with nine kilometres to go.

The five kept battling and were twenty second clear with three kilometres. 

Gougeard and Venter tried to attack but were pulled back but the leader were caught inside the final kilometre and Trek Factory Racing's Danny Van Poppel, who punctured with just over ten kilometres to go, took the sprint ahead of Daryl Impey of Orica GreenEdge, Tosh Van Der Sande,  Nikolas Maes, John Degenkolb, Jean-Pierre Drucker, Tom Van Asbroeck,  Kristian Sbaragli, Jose Joaquin Rojas and Leonardo Duque. 

Van Poppel said: "We pulled all day with the Italian guys, and in the end it was a really nice sprint. 

"It was not really a puncture, it was just slowly going down. I changed and I came really good back. My teammates did a great job to bring me back. 

[Was yesterday hardest day of your life?] "I did the Tour when I was 19, and I suffered also a lot. This came close, but I suffered a lot yesterday and I really wanted to win today."